LiD2: Darkness of the Heart
by Usagi-Zakura
Summary: Sequel to LiD. Kairi discovers something about her biological family and the gang receives a call for help by someone least imaginable. As they discover a new way for nobodies to regain their hearts, is there any hope for what's left of Organization XIII?
1. First Day of Summer

**Usagi: welcome back loyal fans and to the rest of you… if you haven't read Lost in Darkness you should probably read that one first or you might get confused.**

**Sora: they'll probably get confused if they read the last chapter of that one too.**

**Usagi: do you want to become a heartless again?**

**Sora: …do continue.**

**Usagi: good boy. I've been looking forward to writing this fanfic, (as well as the third one...coughs) and I hope you have been looking forward to reading too… and that it doesn't suck so bad that you'll stop reading after the first chapter (don't do that, I know there isn't a lot of action in this chapter but it's the first chapter for goodness sake. There wasn't much action in the first chapter of Lord of the Rings either).**

**Anyway, for the story. **

**Darkness of the Heart takes place two years after Lost in Darkness (and KH2 in case you wondered) We're not getting into much of the plot in the first chapter, but there's hinting of some of it;3**

**Zakura: meaning, more suspense around one of the un-answered questions asked in Lost in Darkness, what is Zexion up to?**

**Zexion: zzzzzz**

**Axel: sleeping it seems.**

**Usagi: enough yapping on with the fanfictioning: **

**Sora: that's not even a word…**

**Usagi: (shows a picture of Sora as a shadow)**

**Sora: …(takes out a dictionary and scribbles something in it) well what do you know…it is. **

**Usagi: Lost in Darkness 2: Darkness of the Heart, starting now!**

* * *

**Chapter**** 1**

**First Day of Summer**

* * *

It was a beautiful summer day on Destiny Island; at least it would be, as it was the last day of school before summer vacation.

Just now it was just plain boring.

The teacher seemed convinced it was possible to teach her students something despite it being the last day of school, but as she stood with her back turned writing on the blackboard she didn't notice not one of the students were paying attention.

Pretty much every student sitting by the window was staring out of it; the others were sleeping, chatting or simply not paying attention.

A seventeen year old girl was the only one reading a book, however it wasn't a school book, it was a book about cats.

Another girl bent over her shoulder.

"What are you reading Kairi?" she asked.

"Just a book on cat-health, Zexion's been acting odd lately and I've been trying to find out what could be the cause" Kairi replied.

"Why don't you just ask?" a boy sitting by the window asked.

"I have tried Sora, but he keeps saying everything is fine" Kairi said. "It's almost like was depressed or something."

"He's a nobody, he can't get depressed" Sora reminded her.

"Little Zexy is feeling sick? Too bad, he's sooo cute! I just wanna cuddle him" said Selphie. "But he won't let me."

Kairi couldn't help but giggle a little.

"Don't forget he's not an ordinary cat, and he's got bad experience with "cuddling". I don't think anyone's even been able to touch him since he came to the islands" Kairi said.

"I know" Selphie said. "But he must have been dreamy as a human…"

Both girls suddenly started staring at Sora.

"What? I didn't know him back then, ask Riku" the boy said.

"Didn't Roxas know him?" Kairi asked.

"Yeah, but it's not like I've got photos" Sora said, when something suddenly came up from his backpack.

"He looked pretty much the same, minus the fuzz" said Axel the ottsel, whose head was currently sticking out of Sora's backpack.

Axel must have spoken a bit too loud, as the teacher turned around and looked towards the back of the classroom.

"Is there a problem Sora?" she asked.

"No, not at all" Sora said, quickly pushing Axel back into the backpack. "Just…looking for a new pencil".

The teacher only turned her back on again, not caring to ask the students to stay quiet; despite looking like she wanted to educate some more, it was clear even she just wanted this day to be over so she could go home. Sora opened his back pack again.

"Axel what are you doing here?" he whispered.

"I got bored, there's nothing to do when you leave me home alone and Trixi is no fun to play with" Axel complained. "Can't you finish of school a bit sooner?"

"Its school, I can't just go. My grades are bad enough as it is" Sora said.

"But what if the fire alarm went of?" Axel asked.

Before anyone had time to answer, he teleported away.

"He's not going to burn down the school is he?" Selphie asked.

"Nah, come on, even he's not that dumb" Kairi said.

"Oh I wouldn't be too sure about that" Sora sighed.

--

The fiery red ottsel was sneaking trhough the school building like a cat hunting for his prey. In fact that was a rather accurate description, as he had noticed earlier how Sora's cat Trixi was able to sneak up to any mouse un-noticed by doing this, so he had taken to copying her.

Of course red wasn't exactly a camouflage colour, but it did help that the halls were empty.

After only a couple of minutes he found what he was looking for. A smoke detector.

Just a tiny cloud of smoke would be enough; Axel wasn't stupid, he knew he didn't have to set fire to anything to make it go of, they were in fact very sensitive.

--

It only took a couple of minutes after Axel's disappearance before the fire alarm went of.

"Oh my, I guess we should get out of the building everyone" the teacher said. "Remember, nice and calm, and wait outside the school building".

The whole class was gone before she could even finish the last word.

"They're not waiting outside the school building" the teacher muttered.

Sure enough, every student at school decided that the unreliable fire alarm just signalled an early summer break. At least this gave the school a replace the old thing. It had already gone of 4 times during the last semester without a single sign of fire, and once when Axel accidentally set fire to the desk he was hiding under.

Selphie decided to just hurry home, while Sora and Kairi met up with Riku just outside the building, who was holding a squirming ottsel by the tail.

"Hey, I helped you get out early; shouldn't I get some praise at least?" Axel asked.

"Oh don't get me wrong, I appreciated that, we had math" Riku said. "I only hold you like this because I hate you."

"You're welcome."

"Don't mention it" Riku said and dropped him at the hard concrete floor. Luckily Axel was prepared (this happened like 3 times a week anyway) and quickly got to his feet. "So, you two have any plans after school that doesn't involve candlelight dinner for two?"

"It's a bit early for dinner don't you think? I think I should better get home, you can come if you want to" Kairi said.

"Oh right, Axel mentioned Zexion's been some problem, what's the matter?" Riku asked.

"Maybe he got dropped from a metres height onto a hard concrete floor?" Axel suggested.

"No that's not it, he's just seemed a bit down lately" Kairi said. "And yes Riku I am perfectly aware that he can't get depressed so don't point it out" she added as Riku looked about to say something. He shut his mouth and let her continue.

"A couple of weeks ago I found him looking trhough my picture book, and well… the next time I came too look at it one of the pictures were missing" Kairi explained.

"Is it the picture of me right after I fell into the sea outside the island?" Riku asked.

"No. That one's still there."

"Aw…"

"I don't suppose any of you guys remember the oldest picture I've got?"

"You mean the smeary greasy thing we picked up on the beach the day you came to the island?" Sora asked.

"Yeah, that one, it's gone" Kairi said sadly.

"Aaand…you think Zexion took it? Why would he take that? It has nothing but sentimental value and you can't even see what's on it" Riku said.

"I don't know. It's just a hunch" Kairi said. "But I guess it's nothing. It probably fell out when he put the album back or something. I've heard him complain several times how hard it is to hold a book with cat-paws, and the glue was old so for all I know it might still be under the bed or something."

"We'll help you look. After all it's the only memory you have of your old family right?" Sora said.

"You make it sound more serious than it is, I can't miss someone I don't remember. Besides I've got you right?" Kairi said, and Sora couldn't help but blush. "But thanks anyway" she added and kissed him on the cheek.

The two had been going out for two years now, ever since their last adventure, which none of them really liked to talk about, Sora least of all.

Kairi's house was the one closest to the school of the trio's homes, and the place they usually went when they didn't have anything else to do after school.

"I'm home" Kairi said the moment she opened the door, her mom…or stepmother more precisely, came out of the living room.

"You home early?" she asked.

"Yeah, you know, last day of school you know" Kairi said shrugging. No need to tell her Axel threatened to set fire to the school…again.

However Kairi's mother wasn't stupid, the moment she saw the little ottsel creep in the door she cast him a suspicious look, as he tried not to attract any attention to himself, but decided not to say anything.

"I guess you haven't had lunch yet, do you want anything? Sora? Riku?" she asked.

"Maybe a small bite thanks" Sora said.

"Where's Zexion?" Kairi asked.

"I don't know. I haven't seen him all day" her mom said. "I looked under the couch, all the beds, on top of the kitchen cupboards and even inside the washing machine."

"Wow, he's like the total opposite of Trixi" Sora said. "If you want to find her you'd just as well look…well, right in front of you really."

"Have you ever considered looking _in_ the couch? You'd think after he's hidden so often he'll just hide somewhere completely obvious next time to trick you" Riku said. "Like in front of your feet maybe?"

"Oh come on Riku, like I wouldn't notice that" Kairi's mother said and walked towards the kitchen when she almost tripped in something. A silver-coloured cat, who had in fact just come running in from the living room, where it looked like he had been "hiding" in a grey chair.

"There you are Zexion, how are you today?" Kairi asked smiling.

"Hungry" Zexion just replied and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Wow… that was a short reply, even for him" Axel said.

"If he's eating then he should be fine, shall we go look for that picture then?" Riku asked.

"You're right, let's go" Kairi said.

They all walked upstairs towards Kairi's room.

As they left up the stairs none of them noticed the cat sneaking after them.

Kairi's bedroom wasn't very big, and very tidy.

She had a desk, spotless, next to a large closet and a bookshelf on the other side.

On the other side of the room was her bed, next to it again, a cat-bed, next to a pillow. Zexion had refused to use the bed, so he just took out the pillow and slept on it, directly on the floor.

Kairi immediately pulled the photo album out from under her bed and examined the area around it.

"Well it's not here" she said.

"Okay, so that rules out that possibility" Sora said. "Maybe it's blown of somewhere, Axel, you check under the closet".

"Why me?" Axel asked.

"Cause Riku, Kairi and I won't fit under there, come on" Sora said.

There was no arguing against that, so Axel went over and tried to squeeze himself under the small space between the closet and the floor, it was tight even for him.

There weren't many places in the room to look, so Riku just decided to lift the cat basket and Zexion's pillow, just in case the picture somehow ended up over there, as Sora just peeked into the paper bin.

"Kairi, look" Sora said suddenly.

The others came up to him (minus Axel who had gotten stuck under the closet) as he picked up the picture from the paper bin.

A part of it was missing, the face…or what would have been the face…of the second-smallest person on the picture had been cut of, and it almost looked as though it had been bitten of by an animal.

"A cat-bite" Riku said.

Kairi turned around towards the door and saw nothing but the end of a bushy tail, as Zexion ran back downstairs.

"But why?" she asked.

* * *

**Usagi: D: Someone's been a bad kitty-cat**

**Zexion: how do you know it wasn't Trixi?**

**Usagi: she lives at Sora's house.**

**Zexion: oh.**

**Demyx: where was I in this chapter?**

**Usagi: … at a Smash Mouth concert.**

**Demyx: rly? **

**Usagi: no. You just weren't there. You were probably off somewhere playing your sitar. **

**Demyx: kay…**

**Mysterious Stranger: Where was I in this chapter?**

**Usagi: in the Netherworld…where you were in LiD chapter 29 AND the Epilogue.**

**Mysterious Stranger: rly?**

**Usagi: rly.**

**Dolores Jane Umbridge: where was I in this chapter?**

**Usagi: IN HELL! (Shoots her)**

**Zakura: who let her in?**

**Sora: (sneaks out of the room)**

**Usagi: Well I hope you like it…and that a certain someone will stop begging me to upload a new chapter immediately seeing as I pretty much uploaded both the second last and last chapter of LiD not too long ago and now this. Yay me. **

**Please review, and don't let Umbridge back in.**

**Zakura: you just killed her.**

**Usagi: then don't let her ghost in. **


	2. Zexion's Secret

**Usagi:…what…WHAT? 2 updates in two days! Now NO ONE can really say I'm neglecting THIS fic or what?**

**Max: what about us? I hope you're not forgetting Heart Wars and Kingdom Dorks 2.**

**Usagi: oh I haven't forgotten about them. I would most definitely finish those two as well.**

**Another new character appears in his chapter, and we'll finally get to know what it is Zexion has been hiding all this time, which could also explain why he joined the party in the first place.**

**Zakura: hah! You made that connection up AFTER he joined the party.**

**Usagi:3 Okay so I like making connections between random characters, I think its cute. **

**With another mention of Elias Mouse, Mickey's son in this chapter I felt it's about time I told where his name really comes from. In Lost in Darkness Aerith says he was named after Mickey's father… and I meant that quite literally. He's named after Walter Elias Disney XD Most known as Walt Disney, and if you've never heard of him…have you ever wondered why there's a text above the KH-logo saying "Disney"? XD**

**Enough of that, here's LiD2 chapter 2:**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**Zexion's Secret**

* * *

A gummi ship was travelling trhough space towards the small island kingdom.

"We're almost there madam" the pilot said, or more precisely quacked.

"Excuse me, what?" the woman standing behind him asked.

"Ayhuck, Donald just said we're almost there, that's Destiny Islands just bellow us" said the dog sitting next to her.

"I hope so, I couldn't stand another minute in this cramped ship" the woman said.

"Hey! Don't make fun of the Highwind! We just had it undergo a serious upgrade and to be frank I'm quite pleased with the results" a chipmunk said.

"You're three inches tall; of course you'll be pleased with it. A hamster cage would be big enough for you two" the woman said coldly.

"Don't say that!" another chipmunk said. "Elias once thought so to; he hid me in that small cage for days and wouldn't feed me or anything! Being trapped by a 2-year old is bad enough but the torture! If I had to run one more inch in that wheel I'd go mad!"

"Relax Chip, the King threw out the cage and specifically told him never to do it again" his brother reassured him.

"I'm starting the landing procedure now, you better fasten your seatbelts" Donald said.

--

On the beach of Destiny Islands lay a beaver.

Not your average beaver mind you, first it had blonde fur, and a mullet, and neither was things normally seen in wild beavers.

Demyx was just as unlike a normal beaver as Zexion was to a normal cat, and right now he was enjoying the summer day by sunbathing.

But his perfect day would soon be interrupted as he heard the roar of a space ship coming toward the beach.

He looked up to see the colourful gummi ship coming towards him.

"Oh snap!" he said and ran towards the city.

It didn't take him long before he crashed into Sora, as the trio ( Axel) had also heard the sound.

"You've got visitors" Demyx said, a totally unnecessary piece of information.

"The king?" Riku asked. "What are they doing here?"

"Let's go ask" Sora said.

They ran down to the beach, Demyx and Axel following in their heels, as the gummi ship landed safely on the sand.

Hardly before the door even opened, Goofy ran out of it.

"Sora!" he said happily.

"Oh not again" Sora said, just before Goofy tackled him and both fell to the ground.

"Nice to see you too" Riku said and laughed. "Long time no see".

"Gawrsh, sorry Sora, it's been so long since we last met" Goofy said and helped Sora get up.

"Really professional Goofy" Donald sighed.

"So, what are you guys doing here?" Sora asked.

"Actually we came to see Kairi" Donald explained.

"Me? What for?" Kairi asked.

"Someone's here too see you princess" Goofy said, as a third person came out of the gummi ship.

It was a woman, wearing what looked like very expensive clothes, and with long red hair, very similar to Kairi.

"I don't believe it… Kairi! It is you!" she said happily.

"Excuse me but…who are you?" Kairi asked.

"Oh sorry, you probably don't remember me after all these years" the woman said. "My name is Nanami, I am your mother."

"Kairi's mother?!?" Sora and Riku said at the same time, Kairi was too shocked to say anything.

"I knew she looked familiar. There's definitely some family resemblance between those two" Axel said.

"I've been looking for you for so long" Nanami said as she embraced Kairi in a hug. "I had just about given up but when I came back to Radiant Garden, I met someone who said they knew you, and they contacted these two…things".

"Things? You're welcome too" Donald said sarcastically.

"Sorry, I'm just not too used to talking animals" Nanami said and giggled nervously.

"Aw don't worry, we get that a lot on our journeys, ahyuck" Goofy said.

"But you look at you, you've gotten so big, where have you been all these years?" Nanami asked, turning her attention towards Kairi again.

"Ehm… Here mostly" Kairi said. "And yeah, these are my friends by the way; Sora, Riku, Demyx and Axel, and you've already met Donald and Goofy."

"Charming…is that a weasel?" Nanami asked.

"Actually I'm an ottsel" Axel said and laughed as the woman flinched.

"More talking animals… Well alright then, how about you show me where you live. I would love to know what you've been up to for so long and I'm sure you want to know more things about your biological family as well" Nanami said.

--

They went back home to Kairi's house, where her stepparents welcomed her real mom with open arms.

Kairi's stepmother was more than willing to tell stories from her childhood, while Sora, Riku, Kairi and the two nobodies (Zexion was still of somewhere hiding) were looking through a photo album that Nanami had brought along.

"Look, this looks like a copy of the same picture I had" Kairi said and pointed to a family photo. "Except…more easily recognizable."

"That's right. That is your father right there, unfortunately he died a couple of years ago" Nanami said, pointing to a man with short grey hair. "And that there is your older brother, we haven't seen him since Radiant Garden got taken over by the heartless" she pointed to a boy with silvery blue hair, rather untidy to.

"Wait a sec…" Sora said. "That guy looks strangely familiar…"

"Yeah, you're right" Riku said. "You don't think…?"

"That can't be…" Kairi said.

"Something wrong?" Nanami asked.

"Not at all, we just got to go somewhere… be right back" Kairi said and the trio suddenly ran out the door.

"What was that all about?" Nanami asked.

"I don't know but these cookies are great" Axel said, taking another cookie of the table.

The three teens had gone out into the garden, following some cat-tracks into a tree.

"Zexion, I know you're up there" Kairi shouted into the tree.

Zexion merely peeked out of the leaves.

"She showed you the picture didn't she?" he asked.

"You know who that woman is?" Kairi asked.

"Of course I know who she is. I smelt her a mile away. She had to find you one day, seeing as you tree have been almost all across the galaxy already" Zexion said.

"But then if you knew who she was then you must have known who I was when we first met too! Why didn't you say anything?" Kairi said, almost crying now. "Why didn't you tell me you were my brother?"

Zexion didn't even look at her, just stretched out like an ordinary cat would, without a care in the world.

"The keyword here is _was_ your brother. Your big brother Ienzo is long gone, I'm just the empty shell he left behind" he said eventually.

"That's a rather lame excuse to keep such things hidden don't you think?" Sora asked.

"Well that was your fault" Zexion said.

"Eh?"

"I don't suppose I have to remind you about what happened two years ago right? Kairi got really upset about that, and I'd rather not have her go trhough that again"

"I guess that does make sense" Kairi said. "But will you at least come in and see mom?"

"And let her see me like this? Not a chance" Zexion said. "Not a chance sister. You go inside, eat cookies or whatever, I'll be fine out here".

"Well okay, but if you ever want to talk to her just come in okay?" Kairi said.

Zexion gave a muffled response, and the three teens went back inside to find Axel flat out on the table after having eaten all the cookies, and Demyx whining because he didn't get any.

Kairi's stepmother and birth mother seemed to have just decided the best was to ignore the nobodies and were just talking like nothing ever happened.

"Ah there you are Kairi. Your mother and I have been talking" her stepmother said as she entered, as if that wasn't obvious already.

"That's right, and we have some good news for you" Nanami said. "I've decided to take you back to Radiant Garden, so you can come live with me".

But to Kairi, this didn't really sound like "good news".

"What? Leave Destiny Islands?" she said in shock.

"Oh I'm sure you'll love it, after all you'll finally be able to live with your real family" Nanami said.

"But I don't want to leave my friends. No offence mom but I've lived on Destiny Islands for as long as I remember" Kairi said. "Shouldn't I have anything to say in this? I am 17 after all!"

"And you're not considered a legal adult until you're 18" Nanami reminded her. "If you want to go back and live with your friends next year I can't stop you, but don't I have the rights to share some quality time with my long-lost daughter? You can still visit your friends if you want to."

"She does have a point" Sora said. Kairi turned quickly and stared at him with what looked like a mix of surprise and anger. "She's been looking for you for years, and I'll come visit you every day if you want."

"And how exactly were you planning to do that?" Kairi asked.

"Oh we'll think of something" Riku said.

"Still it's not quite…" Kairi said but was cut of as she felt something bump into her feet.

She looked down and saw Zexion standing there, she picked him up.

"I'll come with you if you want me to" he said, so silently Nanami couldn't hear him. "But please, don't tell her who I a… was"

"Okay, but you're gonna have to let her know sooner or later" Kairi whispered back. Out loud she said. "Fine, I'll come, but I want to take my cat along".

"That's okay, I'm sure he'll make a great playmate for Fluffy" Nanami said smiling. "We'll be leaving first thing in the morning, so you can say goodbye to your friends first."

Zexion flinched at the mention of the word "Fluffy"; Axel couldn't help but break out in laughter.

Kairi just laughed nervously. "If you make a scene with this other pet I'll be sure to tell her all about you" she warned. Zexion gave of a disapproving meow.

* * *

**Usagi: poor Zexion:3**

**Zakura: you'll never grow tired of bothering him will you?**

**Sora: if being nicknamed "Fluffy" repeatedly and now being put in the same house as another pet named that is "bothering" then what is getting your heart ripped out and turning into the stupidest being on the face of the planet?**

**Usagi: why Sora, that's pure torture. Yet I feel the need to remind you Ienzo here went trhough the same thing. (Points to a random shadow sitting in the corner eating ice cream)**

**Sora: …why is Zexion's heartless a shadow?**

**Usagi: because I like shadows. I considered making him a neo at least but…nope. Shadow it is. And Ienzo is his official name folks (though I bet most of you knew that already…) Only 7 names of the Organization's others were revealed in KH2, and that is Ansem's six assistants: Xehanort, Braig, Dilan, Even, Elaeus (or whatever, I'm not good at spelling his name), Ienzo and of course Sora.**

**Sora: I'm flattered.**

**Usagi: This left the other 6 completely nameless so I could name them whatever I want… Also the reason why they have different names depending on what fanfic you read:3 Also I only know about the heartless forms of 2 organization members in the cannon, Sora and Xehanort, the rest of them were up to my own imagination. I have some planned out, like little Ienzo here, mostly picking random heartless I thought fitted one way or another… Others may or may not be based of another fanfic… More about that later in the fanfic. **

**Enough ranting from a sugar-high fangirl, please keep the reviews coming, don't expect ALL updates to be this frequent XD but hopefully I'll be back soon with more suspense..**

**Zakura: …and cliff hangers**

**Usagi: I wasn't going to say that…**

**Zakura: but you were thinking it.**

**Usagi: ugh. Whatever. PLEASE REVIEW!**


	3. Saying Goodbye

**Usagi: Here we are back with a new chapter so STOP ASKING FOR CHAPTER 3 ALREADY!**

**Zakura: maybe you shouldn't give out your MSN-address to your fans.**

**Usagi: Meh. It's more fun than talking to my brother who's sitting across the room. **

**We have a bit of a sad chapter coming up…except that with space-travelling teens it's not so sad after all. I am starting to regret never giving Kairi's step mother a name…but since she probably won't even appear past this point it'd just be awkward giving her a name now.. So she won't be getting one. I am just that evil. **

**Sora: and that's obviously the meanest thing she's ever done…**

**Usagi: what? You know of something more evil I've done?**

**Sora: oh…I dunno, what about RIPPING MY HEART OUT?**

**Usagi: please Sora, that was LiD1, this is LiD2. Get over it already. **

**Sora: (sharpens the Oathkeeper)**

**Usagi: enough of that, enjoy chapter 3:**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Saying Goodbye**

* * *

It was nearing sunset and Sora and Kairi were sitting alone at the bent tree over at the smaller island.

They had already been and explained what had happened to all of Kairi's friends, and she had to promise Selphie to write six times a day and visit as often as possible to make her stop crying.

"I've never noticed how pretty the sunset looks from this place, I'm gonna miss it" Kairi said.

"You never know what you've got till you loose it right?" Sora said. "But its not like you'll never see it again, you can still come visit. Besides, no matter where you are, I'll always be with you".

Kairi giggled slightly and looked up, noticing a single star-shaped fruit, hanging by the tree.

"You know…we never did test out the legend of the paopu fruit" she said.

"I don't really like paopu fruit" Sora admitted.

"Well we could always get some sea salt ice cream instead" Kairi suggested.

"Paopu it is then" Sora said and started climbing up the tree.

He got all the way up to the top and was about to loosen the fruit, when something apparently startled him and he fell backwards and landed in the water.

"Oh my! Sora! Are you okay?" Kairi yelled.

Sora re-emerged almost immediately and glared at something in the tree.

"I'm fine. Just gotta do something, stay back please" he said and summoned the Kingdom Key. "FIRAGA!" he yelled and a fireball hit one of the branches of the tree, which fell of, along with a small red animal, which hit the water close to Sora before jumping out and climbed up onto his head.

"Axel, what the heck are you doing?" Sora asked.

"Nothing…just felt like climbing some trees that's all…you know, animal-instincts and all" Axel said innocently.

"Is that so? Well your "animal instincts" made me loose the paopu fruit in the water, and since you're half otter then I guess you could swim down and get it?" Sora suggested.

Axel gazed down into the water nervously.

"I would…but…I just remembered…I have another appointment…elsewhere…bye" Axel said, before disappearing into a puff of black smoke.

"Well at least we destroyed the evidence" Sora said and picked up a camera that had fallen into the water, a couple of sparks flew out of it, and it was obviously broken. "But I'm afraid the same can be said about the fruit, I said I didn't like paopu fruit and particularly not when it's wet".

"Never mind that. We probably won't be able to be alone with Axel running around now anyway" Kairi said. "Too bad he used a portal, now we have no way of knowing where he's hiding".

"I know one place we could be alone" Sora said, as he was climbing up the ladder.

"The secret place?" Kairi asked.

"I figured it would be smart to have one place where he wouldn't pop up all the time, so I never told him about it" Sora said. "Too bad he might see us go in there…unless…"

Kairi just sighed at Sora's non-spoken suggestion.

"You know what I feel about those dark corridors" she said.

"But you said so yourself it would be okay to use it in emergencies, and Axel uses them all the time" Sora said.

"Yeah but Axel doesn't have a heart to loose in the first place" Kairi reminded him.

"Well it's not like were going to another world or something, just a short distance" Sora said. "Unless you have another idea on how to get away from him".

Kairi thought over this, and then sighed.

"Fine, let's go" she said eventually.

--

The next morning Kairi was busy packing her stuff…except for the fact that Kairi wasn't there so it was pretty much her mom and step-parents packing, and Zexion watching from the sidelines.

"Where is that girl?" Nanami asked impatiently.

"Like I said earlier, she and her friends are sleeping over at the smaller island" Kairi's stepmother said. "They do that sometimes, and I would bet she'd want to spend her last night out there."

"You really let the kids stay out there all by themselves?" Nanami asked.

"Oh don't worry, there's nothing dangerous out there. Of course we won't let them go there if the weather is too bad or anything" the other woman assured her. "And look, here they come now."

Out of the window they could see Sora, Riku and Kairi walking down the street, Sora was holding Axel by the tail and Demyx and Trixi, Sora's one-eared cat, were running behind them.

As they entered the door, Trixi ran up to Kairi's stepmother and dropped a dead mouse at her feet.

"Ugh, that's disgusting" Nanami said.

"But rather useful if you have a rodent problem" the other woman said and petted Trixi on the head. "Too bad our cat won't catch mice."

"And I would want to stick my teeth into a dirty little rodent because…" Zexion muttered as he came out of the kitchen, careful not to let Nanami hear him.

"That's good to hear, if he's going to live with us" Nanami said. "No offence against cats, they're cute and all but I can't stand having rodents dropped on my feet all the time, that's why I got a dog."

Zexion flinched at the last word and quickly jumped up into Kairi's arms. "Please tell me she didn't just say she had a dog" he said quietly. "Annie had a dog, a big one, and he hated my guts".

"Ehm, mother? This dog you mentioned… does it like cats?" Kairi asked.

"Oh don't worry, Fluffy is just a puppy, and a small breed to" Nanami said. "He probably won't even outgrow little…I don't think you ever told me what he was called?"

"Er.." Kairi started, if she told her mother his real name, she might figure out it was an anagram of Ienzo, and she wasn't so good at making up pet names she could come up with one on the spot, particularly not seeing Zexion's dislike towards any cute and cuddly names.

"His name's Schemer" Sora said quickly. But Kairi and Zexion turned around and looked at him.

"From "Cloaked schemer", right? It beats Fluffy anyway" Sora said. "You can thank me later".

"That's a cute name, it kind of fits too, he looks mischievous" Nanami said and bent over to pet Zexion, who jumped out of Kairi's hands and ran out the door.

"Sorry about that…he doesn't like to be petted by strangers" Kairi said.

"He doesn't like to be petted. Period" Riku said.

"Yeah…that too" Kairi admitted.

"Oh I'm sure he'll come round once he's gotten used to tender loving care back in Radiant Garden" Nanami said.

In any other situation Kairi might have replied that she highly doubted that, but what her mother said just reminded her she had to leave the islands, she looked over at Sora.

"Hey, don't worry. Its not like we won't see each other again" he said. "Tell you what; We'll come visit you every day".

"You are aware it takes about two hours with the gummi ship to get to Radiant Garden right? And that is when you DON'T take any random heartless attacks on the way into the count" Kairi said.

"Yeah, so?" Sora asked.

"Like I said, we'll find a way" Riku added.

"We've already packed down all your things and are ready to go as soon as our transport gets here" Nanami said. "Have you finished saying goodbye to your friends?"

"Almost" Kairi said with a sad look towards Sora and Riku.

"Well then hurry up, we'll be leaving in a few minutes" Nanami said. "And make sure your cat won't stray too far away, otherwise we might have to leave him behind."

"Don't worry he won't" Kairi said quietly.

--

Some ten minutes later another gummi ship showed up at the island, noticeably bigger than the Highwind, which was still standing on the beach (Donald, Goofy and the chipmunks had been sleeping over inside.)

"Great, I was worried we would have to ride with that tiny gummi ship the way home too" Nanami said.

She was waiting for the ship to land next to Kairi (carrying Zexion) Sora, Riku, Axel, Demyx and Kairi's step-parents.

The doors on the new ship opened and the king Mickey Mouse came out of it.

"Your transport is ready" Mickey said.

"Oh god, more talking animals" Nanami said flinching.

Kairi couldn't help but laugh. "Mom, I'd like you to meet our friend, King Mickey of Disney Castle" she said.

"Oh, I'm sorry your majesty" Nanami said.

"No problem. It still doesn't beat Ansem the Wise's reaction when we first met, but he got used to it rather quickly" Mickey said.

"Well…I guess this is it then" Kairi said sadly.

"It's not the end though, and wait" Sora said and reached for something in his pockets. He picked out a star-shaped charm made from shells. "Here. I forgot to give it back to you the last time".

Kairi pushed his hand back. "Keep it. For good luck."

Sora put the charm back into his pocket again. "I'll come visit as soon as I can, I promise" he said.

"Just don't exhaust yourself, and whatever you do, don't let Riku drive the gummi ship" Kairi said.

"Thanks for the support Kairi" Riku said. "Then I'll make sure Sora doesn't do anything too crazy trying to visit you."

"Don't worry about the boys Kairi, I'll look after them for you" Selphie said suddenly, before anyone had time to even notice her arrival.

"Oh, thanks Selphie…what are you doing here?" Kairi asked.

"I just had to say bye before you left…and do this" Selphie said before she suddenly grabbed Zexion and hugged him.

The cat quickly squirmed loose and hissed at her.

"What did you do that for?" he asked.

"Aw come on, you've been here for two years and I haven't even been able to pet you. You wouldn't leave without saying a proper good bye would you?" Selphie asked.

"Actually I'd rather leave pretending we've never met" Zexion replied.

"You're mean".

"Thank you".

"Kairi, pick up your cat we've got to leave" Nanami said from the doors of the gummi ship.

"Well…good bye then" Kairi said.

"See you soon" Sora said.

Kairi just smiled as she went into the gummi ship with Zexion at her heels. Within a few minutes the ship had already left the atmosphere, but what Kairi didn't know, was that she would see her friends far sooner than she expected.

* * *

**Usagi: I'm afraid that was all the fun we had for you today.**

**Sora: is there any part of this fanfic you don't consider fun?**

**Usagi: usually parts where no one gets hurt.**

**Sora: …**

**Kairi: what scares me most is that she might even have meant that…**

**Riku: sadistic little…**

**Usagi: wimps. **

**Axel: I'm starting to dislike you too after the start of this chapter.**

**Usagi: D:**

**Zakura: oh geez, get over it already…**

**Usagi: Okay... so see you next…**

**Unknown voice: HOLD ON A SECOND!**

**Riku: hey…isn't that the demon girl we met in the Netherworld?**

**Etna: That's right! The Beautiful Demon-girl Etna! I just had to break in; we can't possibly end the chapter without giving a preview for what's to happen in the next.**

**Usagi: but its not been written yet…**

**Etna: WHO ASKED YOU? So next chapter: The heartless has gotten our heroine surrounded but with help from her faithful prinny squad Etna fights her way through and finishes of the heartless even the keyblade master couldn't handle!**

**Sora: wait what?**

**Etna: but wait! The gigantic monstrous heartless of the nine-tailed-demon fox appears! What will our heroine do? Log on next time for another chapter of Darkness of Etna chapter 4!**

**Riku: That's not the name of this fanfic! Does anything of that actually happen?**

**Flonne: Probably not. **

**Prinny: she does that all the time dood.**

**Etna: spoilsports..**

**Usagi: er…okay… ****Please review peps. **


	4. Surprise visits

**Usagi: Hi everyone! Time for another chapter filled with action and excitement…okay so there's close to no action but hopefully some excitement… And we've finally started to explain some of the loose ends left in LiD**

**Zakura: like how can I be this cute?**

**Usagi: … Suuuure. No that was not it. **

**I don't have anything other fun to say so here's the chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Surprise visits**

* * *

After travelling with her mother and King Mickey for two hours, Kairi already felt the need for a little time alone, and the moment she got to Radiant Garden she told her mother she wanted to go see some friends and made her way towards the HQ of Radiant Garden Restoration Committee. 

"Does she ever stop talking?" Kairi asked.

"Nope. Now I'm almost glad I'm a cat, perhaps I should try catching some mice to so she'd start avoiding me" Zexion said.

"You sure you want to stick your teeth into these "dirty little rodents" as you call them?" Kairi asked.

"There are other ways to catch a mouse sis" Zexion said. "I am a nobody after all, and just like Axel and Demyx I have some tricks up my sleeve."

"What sleeve? You don't wear clothes" a new voice said.

A black haired girl had just showed up, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Hi Yuffie, what's up?" Kairi asked.

"Not much, yet" Yuffie said.

"What do you mean yet?" Kairi asked.

"Well… you see, just a few minutes before you arrived we got a message on the PC, and it was labelled for the keybladers" Yuffie explained.

"Really? Is someone sending fan-mail to Sora and Riku perhaps?" Kairi said. 

"I don't think its fan-mail exactly…we haven't opened it yet because we wanted to wait for you, you better come see this" said the young ninja.

_**--**__**--**_

Yuffie, Kairi and Zexion came into Merlin's house to find Cid and Leon looking at the PC. 

"So what is it you wanted to show me?" Kairi asked.

"Have a look at this princess" Cid said and moved out of the way so Kairi could see the screen.

She looked at the message and gasped. 

"What? Is it a spam message with questionable content?" Zexion asked as he struggled to climb up on the PC.

"Actually I was more surprised at who sent it" Kairi said and picked him up.

Zexion looked at the screen and blinked.

"Larxene?" he said. 

"Seems your old friend in the Organization wants your help. Should we invite her over?" Cid asked.

"She's not my friend. Larxene isn't anyone's friend, except maybe Marluxia surprisingly enough" Zexion said. "I don't trust her, it could be a trap".

"Open it" Kairi said.

"I can't" Cid replied.

"Why not?" 

"You're standing in front of the keyboard".

"Oh…"

Kairi clicked the email.

"Wow, Zex, you should come see this" she said.

"If you promise never to call me that agai…what the?" Zexion said. "She says they've found out how nobodies can get their heart back."

"Really? How?" Leon asked.

"She doesn't say. She wants to talk to Sora, Riku and Kairi in person as she states she needs their help" Zexion said.

"Sounds fishy to me" Cid said. "Why would we need to help the nobodies anyway?"

Zexion gazed at him.

"Forget I said anything" Cid muttered. "Should we reply or what?" 

"Maybe we should ask Sora and Riku" Kairi suggested.

"Good idea, I'll send them an email" Cid said. "In times like this I'm glad Sora's mother decided to buy him a laptop for Christmas. Even if I have to fix it every other week."

Ten minutes later the door slammed open and Sora, Riku, Axel and Demyx ran in.

"We came as fast as we could" Sora said.

"Well that was certainly fast…did you follow us or something?" Kairi asked.

"Er…sure. Yeah. What you said" Sora said.

"So, if everyone's here should I send a reply to this Larxene? Or do we want the rest of the gang here too first?" Cid asked.

"Oh I'm sure we can handle one Organization-member" Merlin said as he walked in the door. "I'll just put a spell over this house so she can't use her powers…er... what's her element again?" 

"Electricity" Axel said.

"Ugh, don't remind me" Demyx said. "Water and electricity doesn't work well together."

"Neither does water and fire yet you don't hear me complaining, got it memorized?" Axel reminded him. 

"Really? Cause I've heard you complain at the humidity at Destiny Island several times" Riku said.

"Humid air and clear water are not exactly the same, it messes up my hair" Axel said.

"Too late. It's already caught fire" Riku said.

"Have anyone ever told you that with that hairdo you look like a girl?" Axel asked.

Riku glared at him.

"I win" Axel said. 

Everyone else just stared at the two. 

"Do they do that often?" Cid asked Kairi.

"Every single day" Kairi replied. "Riku always tries to get Axel mad…despite the fact that he's a nobody that has no feelings…"

"They still have memories of emotion, and I'll get him some day. I managed to piss of Roxas and I'll get him to flip too just wait" Riku said.

"Well in a few minutes you could try with Larxene" Axel suggested.

"Please, I don't have a death wish" Riku replied.

"That's good because here she comes now" Leon said from where he was standing, right next to the window.

A woman wearing a black cloak carefully made her way towards the small house. She had her hood up, but since it was only one female in the Organization XIII there really wasn't much doubt who it was.

"Why is she walking?" Axel asked. "Why can't she just teleport into a room like any normal being".

"Because any normal being doesn't do that and it's really annoying?" Riku suggested.

"You're just jealous because you can't" Axel said. 

"Stop arguing for fifteen minutes please" Kairi sighed.

"You might as well lock them into separate rooms at once since you know that will never happen" Sora said. "Riku can't go five minutes without insulting anyone."

"Wanna bet?" Riku asked. "If you win, you get an ice cream, if I win…you still get an ice cream, sea salt, and you have to eat it". 

"Deal, I want strawberry" Sora said.

"Sometimes I wonder why Xemnas worries about you guys" a new voice said.

Sora and Riku turned around and saw that Larxene had come in; she'd taken her hood of and was now gazing at the two boys plus one ottsel. 

"Larxy, looking like a ray of sunshine as always" Axel said. "But where did you leave your feathers?"

"Shut it fuzz ball, I didn't come here because I wanted to" Larxene said. "I came because Vexen wanted your help for something and apparently he was too "busy" to come himself. I tried making him but that fox of his is really annoying."

"Jikes, he still has that thing?" Demyx said, as he remembered Buxyuki, the demon fox nobody Vexen had picked up in the Netherworld two years ago.

"And why would we want to help you guys out? I haven't really gotten any "good" experiences out of his little toys. Do we gain anything from this?" Riku said. 

"Actually you do" Larxene said. "Well at least you three do" she added looking at the nobody-animals at the floor. "And I'm sure you would like to get some answers about what happened two years ago am I right?"

"You mean you've figured it out?" Sora asked.

"Well the old fox did" Larxene said. "And the rest of you better listen as well, since what I'm about to tell you might affect your chances at ever bringing down the Organization XIII".

"We're not helping them get their hearts just to get them off our backs if that's what you think" Riku said. "I'd rather just kill the whole lot."

"You already did that, and I guess I'm a live example that it didn't work" Larxene said. "Vexen has a theory however as to why that is… According to him, heartless and nobodies are actually immortal."

That got everyone's attention and all who were in the room stared at the savage nymph with varying expressions from shock to disbelief. Zexion was among the latter.

"If we're immortal then how did we end up getting killed in the first place?" he asked.

"You're still here aren't you?" Larxene commented.

"More or less" Zexion muttered, glaring at his tail like it was his worst enemy. 

"Exactly, Vexen's theory was that as long as your heartless is still running loose out there you'll just keep being reborn, possibly changing a bit me each time" Larxene said.

"A bit? I'm a freaking cat!" Zexion said. 

"I always thought that was because the author has a fur-fetish" Riku said.

"Will you stop breaking the fourth wall so I can finish?" Larxene said sounding very annoyed. If it hadn't been for Merlin's magic sparks would definitely have been flying into various directions right now. 

"Please, I'm actually more worried about what Usagi might do to me than you" Riku said as Larxene pulled out one of her knives. "On the other hand, if what you're saying is true then… how are we supposed to kill the organization?" 

"I was getting to that before I got so rudely interrupted… ("You owe me a strawberry ice cream" Sora said to Riku)…shut both of you. According to Vexen's theory, the only way to completely eradicate a nobody would be to kill both the heartless and the nobody at the same time, but he also discovered another thing, it was actually you guys who gave him the idea" Larxene said. "The secret to fusing a heartless and a nobody".

"Come on, tell us already" Axel said, bouncing up and down at Merlin's books eagerly. 

"That substance you found in Spargus, what was it called again? Light eco? Apparently that is what allowed Roxas and Sora to fuse together as one again" Larxene said.

"Took long enough" Sora said.

"Well the first rule still applied, you didn't honestly believe you could survive falling of the platform in the Hall of Empty Melodies naturally did you?" Larxene said.

"But wait…you weren't in Spargus, neither of you were, so how did you know about the eco?" Kairi said.

"Let's just say you've been "ratted out" Larxene said. 

"Of course…if we couldn't kill him the first time Trixi couldn't possibly have pulled it of the second" Riku said. 

"Luxord lives? Where is he now?" Demyx asked.

"Hiding under Vexen's desk, looking even more scared than you normally are" Larxene said. "Apparently that cat of yours isn't the only one with a taste for rodents, Bux likes them too. But now then, I've said what I had to say, and have an offer for you".

"We're not helping you and your friends get your hearts back if that's what you're thinking" Riku said. 

"That's not what I wanted" Larxene said. "I wanted you to help seek out the heartless of the Organization members".

"And why should we want to do that?" Sora asked.

"Were you even listening key-boy? If you don't find the heartless you'll never be able to defeat Xemnas, ever" Larxene reminded him. "You may kill him again but he'll keep coming back, same goes for the rest of them."

"She does have a point there" a new voice said. 

The door had opened again and three animals came in, Donald, Goofy, and the one talking was King Mickey. 

"If we can find the heartless, we could finally finish the Organization of for good" the mouse king said. "One way or another."

"Where did you come from?" Larxene asked.

"Leon sent me a message asking me to come after they had gotten your email" Mickey explained. "I was on my way home already so it took some time to return, sorry."  
"That's okay. But how exactly are we going to find these heartless? We don't even know what they look like!" Sora said. "Well except for Xehanort.."

"But even so we haven't seen him at all since Ansem blew up Kingdom Hearts two years ago" Riku added.

Everyone's eyes now turned to Larxene again.

"Don't look at me, I haven't got a clue" Larxene said. "I only came to deliver the message, but if you want to keep fighting Organization XIII forever be my guest". With that, she disappeared into a dark portal.

"Well she certainly was no help at all" Axel said.

"Did you honestly expect her to be?" Zexion said. "Though she could have told us why she isn't a bird anymore…I want to get out of this fur coat almost as much as I want my heart back."

"Well we know one thing for sure then" Kairi said, sounding optimistic. 

"Which is?" Zexion said.

"If what she said is true then that means _your_ heartless is still alive to, you guys could all get your hearts back!" Kairi said.

"Hey yeah you're right!" Axel said. "When I get my heart back I'm gonna pull the biggest prank on Riku ever."

"In other words, nothing new" Riku said. "Are you sure you're a nobody?"

"You know… I've kind of gotten used to this form, no need to tire yourselves out on my account" Demyx said. 

"Weren't you listening beaver boy? We can actually get our HEARTS back, isn't that what we've been trying for ever since we became nobodies?" Axel asked.

"Yeah… but after so long its not that bad being a nobody is it?" Demyx asked.

Everyone else, particularly Sora, Axel and Zexion, stared at him in surprise.

"Should I send an email to a doctor? Or a vet?" a voice from the computer said.

"Maybe you should Tron" Zexion said.

"Guys, that really isn't necessary…" Demyx said, but before he got time to come with an explanation he was interrupted by a rumbling sound. "What is that?" 

"Sounds like it's coming from the outside" Leon said and opened the door.

Everyone went outside as they saw a small dot on the sky, which got increasingly bigger and bigger.

"It looks like some kind of space-ship" Cid said.

And it was "some kind of space-ship", big, yellow and almost round, it carefully made its way down between the building, proving the driver was obviously better than Riku ("Hey!" said Riku) before finally landing on the ground just outside Merlin's house.

"Aliens?" Kairi asked.

But as a hatch opened on the top of the space-ship, it wasn't an alien that came out of it, it was a human, a man to be precise. 

"Fear not civilians! Captain Gordon is here to save you!" the man said.

But his heroic speech didn't result in the thundering applause he apparently expected, as the keybladers and their friends just gazed at him.

"Who called for an idiot?" Riku asked.

"We aren't here to save anyone you idiot!" a new voice said, a girl this time, said girl came out of the hatch, hit Gordon on the head, and then jumped down to the ground, accompanied by another girl and two penguins.

At first sight the two girls looked humans, until you saw the red bat-wings and the tails. The penguins too had bat-wings, in addition to normal penguin "wings" (flippers?).

"Etna! Flonne! What are you doing here?" Kairi asked.

"Hi everyone!" Flonne said happily. 

"Greetings can wait" Etna said. "I'm afraid we've got a very big problem, and we need your help".

* * *

**Usagi: 5 PAGES IN YOUR FACE!**

**Zakura: don't throw the pages; you'll give the readers paper cuts.**

**Usagi: well alright then… Didn't I promise you me demons in the last fanfic? Well if I didn't, there will be more demons in this fic. Next chapter marks the beginning of the Netherworld saga part 2. Because I really liked the came Disgaea…or like…or hate the final boss… **

**Sora: you haven't finished that game yet?**

**Usagi: no. The final boss is more annoying than Xemnas, but at least I won't have to fight him five times… hopefully…**

**Sora: that IS annoying…**

**Usagi: and where is Laharl in all this you ask? Oh wouldn't you like to know (evil laugh)**

**We'll be revealing that in the next chapter, I could ask Etna now… but that would count as a preview and Etna can never tell what actually happens next in a preview.**

**Etna: he was eaten by a bear.**

**Usagi: see? There's no way Laharl would get eaten by a bear. And that was a very lousy preview Etna.**

**Etna: well sorry, I didn't have time to prepare myself.**

**Usagi: Please review, or I'll send Captain Gordon; Defender of Earth to your house and you don't want that. **

**Gordon: Why not? The people of earth love me! I've got my own cartoon!**

**Usagi: that explains it…cartoon characters tend to be complete morons. **

**Gordon: hey!**

**Usagi: Flames will be used to roast my hot dogs. See you later! **


	5. Demon Rescue

**Usagi: I would like to point out that no demons were harmed during the writing of this chapter…they were already injured.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**Demonic Rescue**

* * *

The demons were invited inside along with their human friends.

Captain Gordon introduced himself as the Defender of Earth; he was also accompanied by his assistant Jennifer and the all-purpose-robot Thursday.

"I don't blame you for never having heard of me since we are a long way from home" Gordon explained. "But back on Earth I was seen as the biggest hero on the planet!"

"That's odd, considering in the Netherworld he's considered the biggest dofus on the planet" Etna said. "But once again, we are NOT here to tell your life-story Gordon".

"So what have you been up to lately? We haven't seen you in ages" Kairi said.

"Please tell me everything is fine and you just came to say hi" Demyx begged.

"If everything had been fine I would never have shared a space ship with this moron to get here" Etna said. "As a matter of fact, we need your help, or more precisely Laharl needs your help, and that means us too because if he's in trouble he's going to cause trouble for us and the entire Netherworld!"

"Danger, Danger" the robot said (un)helpfully.

"What happened?" Sora asked.

"Well… do you remember that fox we met just before you guys left?" Etna asked.

"Who could forget, he was creepy" Demyx whined.

"That little runt was nothing, that's why the prince wanted to find his heartless, and boy did we find it" Etna said.

"Well to be fair, that stranger found it" Flonne said.

"What stranger?" Riku asked.

"There was this man who showed up at the castle one day, only a few weeks ago" Flonne explained. "I knew there was something weird about him the moment he entered, he didn't look like a demon, and there was something about him that gave me a creepy feeling, even more so than your average demon."

"Wait…this guy, how did he look like?" Demyx said.

"We couldn't really see him properly, he was wearing a cloak and sunglasses to hide his face" Etna said. "Besides he was standing next to a gigantic nine-tailed demon fox, I was more worried about that one."

"It was mean dood" one of the prinnies said.

"It was horrible dood" another one said shivering.

"We didn't see it but it sounded pretty bad, not to mention judging by the state of the castle" Jennifer said.

"Let me guess, he couldn't control the heartless fox so it attacked?" Riku said. "I told him something like that would happen."

"Yeah, how can he be so stupid? Ignoring the advice he got to stay clear of heartless and the forces of darkness?" Sora said.

"Shut up Sora" Riku muttered.

"Yeah, that's pretty much how it happened" Etna said. "Laharl sent his vassals to attack the fox but the stranger summoned a whole bunch of more heartless, even stronger than the ones on our side, the ones that WERE on our side, as it didn't take long before they turned on us too. Flonne and I only just managed to escape unscathed."

"By sacrificing about fifty of us dood!" one of the prinnies complained.

"Oh I wouldn't worry about them, they'll just be reborn" Etna assured the penguin-demons. "Soon after these guys appeared, so we decided to go here to look for help".

"That's some story you guys, but how did you find this place?" Mickey asked.

"It sure wasn't easy" Gordon said. "Not even Thursday had the coordinates to your position, but we have mapped quite a few other worlds, so we decided to ask around then we figured you guys seem to have been just about everywhere."

"Luckily in one world we met a small dragon who told us he knew you, he mentioned this city" Jennifer explained.

"That must have been Mushu" Goofy said. "He used to help us on our first adventure".

"What happened to Laharl?" Kairi asked.

"We don't know, we couldn't find him anywhere" Etna said. "We need your help to try to find him, and drive the heartless out."

"Well then I say we go help" Kairi said.

"NO!" Demyx yelled.

"I hate to say it but this time I agree with Demyx, a demon world is dangerous" Mickey said.

"Yes… what he said" Demyx said. "Demons are definitely not good."

"We've been there once before and no one died" Riku said. "Not even Sora and he was a shadow".

"I thought we agreed not to talk about that?" Sora said.

"When you were there last time were you ever attacked by random demons?" Mickey asked.

"Maybe once…or twice…" Riku admitted. "But they were weaklings!"

"That might be but what if you were to encounter any really STRONG demons? They're very aggressive creatures and many won't think twice about attacking humans" Mickey said.

"The mouse has got a point there" Etna said.

"So you're saying we should just let the demons perish is that it?" Riku asked.

"You don't have to" Donald said. "You just need a good disguise."

"That one has to be good, a pair of plastic wings and a fake tail won't work" Etna said.

"I wasn't talking about plastic wings and tail" Donald said sounding offended.

"Hey yeah, you could give us a good disguise right Donald?" Sora suggested.

"I could" the duck said. "But I was thinking more about letting you do it yourselves, you've been flying of alone a lot lately so it could be useful."

"You can teach us how to transform? Cool!" Kairi said.

"Of course, it's not that hard" Donald said. "Just use your keyblades like you would use any other spell and concentrate on the form you want to take."

"That sounds simple enough, let me try" Sora said and summoned the Kingdom Key.

He pointed the keyblade out in front of him and soon a light started coming out if it. The light grew bigger until it surrounded Sora completely, everyone watched with excitement as the light faded and revealed….a lion cub.

"That's so cute!" Kairi said as most of the others in the room started giggling (except for Etna and Riku who both started laughing loudly).

"What the? What went wrong?" Sora said.

"Er…yeah…its not hard when you've trained at it, and its easier to go into a form which you've been in before, just try again and I'm sure you'll do better" Donald said.

"I'll show you" Sora growled to Etna and Riku and picked up the keyblade he had lost with his teeth. "Come on, human-like creature with wings and a tail. How hard can that be?" he muttered as light surrounded him again.

This time he did manage to transform himself into a human with wings and tail, too bad he didn't have any feet to stand on so he fell to the ground. Looking back at his body he realised the upper half was like his Halloween Town-costume, the lower was a dolphin-tail.

This time everyone in the room broke out into laughter, even the fallen angel Flonne and Sora was getting increasingly more annoyed.

He glanced over at the demons before trying one last time, as he finally got to his feet he looked almost normal again, except that he seemed to have kept his vampirebat-wings, only now they were red, and he had gotten a long thin red tail sticking out from his back. On his head, were two tiny white horns and his ears were a lot sharper than usual.

"How do I look?" he asked once the laughter had died out somewhat.

"Like a devil" Etna said. "And it suits you."

"Bet I can do it faster than you" Riku said.

"Be careful with all that betting of yours you already owe me an ice cream" Sora reminded him as the light from Road to Dawn surrounded his friend.

When the light vanished, a silver-coated ottsel sat on the floor.

"Not that easy is it?" Sora said as the rest of the room broke out in laughter again.

"Next time we try out a new transformation, let's do it in an empty room" Riku said before trying a second time.

"Agreed" Sora said.

As the light disappeared again Riku was still sitting on the floor, now as a small round furry creature with a fluffy tail.

"What on earth is that?" Sora asked the question everyone else would ask if they hadn't been too busy laughing.

"I think I'm a Tasmanian devil" Riku said, trying to ignore the laughter around him as he examined his new body.

"Close, but it won't do" Etna said between her giggles. "Humans might be shooting practise but if you show up in the Netherworld looking like that someone's gonna eat you."  
Trying a third time, Riku finally managed to summon the tail and wings… But he was still a Tasmanian devil.

"That was three, now who was going to do it faster than me?" Sora asked.

"Okay fine, I admit it. But you've transformed more often than I have" Riku said. "Only time I changed was when Donald turned me into an ottsel that one day… and its not easy holding a keyblade without any hands!"

"Now this is getting ridiculous" Donald said and pulled out his wand. A ray of magical light shot out of it and hit Riku, as the light vanished once more he was a real demon, no fur in sight, with a pair of red bat wings and the same long demon tail and pointy ears that Sora had.

"Don't worry about it, you'll get the hang of it soon enough" Donald assured him as Riku just glared at him. "Do you need any help Kairi?"

"Nah, I'll manage" Kairi said. Donald looked around and saw her standing next to Merlin's bed where Zexion was also sitting. But the most noticeable thing on Kairi was that she already had a pair of red wings and tail, in almost the same colour as her hair, and the pointy ears, she grinned at the boys who couldn't help but stare.

"It helps to have a big brother who's a master of illusions" she said.

"Transformations are easy, I just wish my powers were enough to get me out of this cat-body" Zexion said.

"Wow, you guys are looking good, no lowlevel demon would pick on you know" Etna said.

"What about the high-level ones?" Sora asked.

"They pick on anyone. You can't help that" Etna said shrugging.

"There's just one thing, our eyes are still the same, don't demons usually have red eyes?" Kairi said.

"Usually. But don't worry about it, some demons have blue and green eyes too, unusual but it happens" Etna said.

"Well if that's settled shall we go?" Kairi asked eagerly.

"Absolutely not!" said a new voice.

"Damn…I knew we forgot something" Zexion muttered, as his and Kairi's mother suddenly had appeared in the door.

"Mom… My friends need help; we've got to save them!" Kairi said.

"I won't have my daughter running of to some demon-world! You could get hurt" Nanami said.

"It's okay mom, after all I have Sora and Riku to protect me right?" Kairi said.

The way Nanami looked at Sora however proved she didn't really think that was an improvement.

"I've been looking for you for so long honey, I don't say this to be mean I just don't want you to loose you again like I lost your brother" the woman said as Zexion crawled under Merlin's bed sheets.

"But don't you think there might be a demon mother in the Netherworld thinking the same thing?" Kairi tried.

"Kai, maybe you should sit this one out"

Kairi stared at Sora in disbelief, again.

"Don't give me that look, Riku and I can handle it, don't worry" Sora said.

"That's not what bothers me, you've left me behind before, and you have no idea what it's like knowing you are out there fighting while I'm safe at home!" Kairi said. "Please mom, I promise I'll be careful."  
"If it helps, demons aren't really as bad as many people think they are" Flonne said. "In fact many are quite nice."

Nanami didn't seem all too impressed with this news, and just gazed at the fallen angel. Kairi sighed.

"Fine, I'll stay home" she said.

"I'll call you once we get there" Sora said.

"Oh that won't be necessary" Kairi said.

"Good, do we need any mushy good byes first or shall we just go before the Netherworld goes to hell…more than it already is?" Etna asked. "We can take Gordon's ship its more than big enough".

"But I was going to go home and have some pizza!" Gordon said.

Etna, Flonne and Jennifer glared at him.

"But who can worry about food when the demon world is in danger?" the defender of earth said, doing a heroic pose again.

"Where did you find that looser?" Axel asked.

"He kind of crashed down on our doorstep so we decided to keep him. The poor thing wouldn't last a minute without help" Etna said.

"I heard that" Gordon said.

"Be careful Sora" Kairi said.

"Aren't I always?" Sora asked.

"No you're not, that's what I'm telling you to be careful" Kairi said.

"You know… Maybe I should wait here with Kairi to…protect her…right" Demyx suggested.

"She doesn't need protecting back here beaver-boy, you're coming with us" Riku said and picked up the beaver by his tail and dragged him outside.

Everyone else left the room too to see the guys of, but Kairi and Zexion (who was still hiding under the bed sheets) stayed behind for a while longer.

"Zexion? Would you be able to open a dark portal between Radiant Garden and the Netherworld?" Kairi asked.

"Technically as a responsible big brother I should tell you that using those portals too much is very dangerous for a person who doesn't want to loose his heart, you know that?" the lump under the bed sheets said.

"Yes, but are you a responsible brother?" Kairi asked.

"Nope. But lets wait till tonight, if mother notices she'll go nuts" Zexion said.

"I knew I could count on you" Kairi said and picked up the cat before she ran outside.

* * *

**Usagi: once again, I'm sorry for another long chapter with little more than talking, but hopefully you found Sora and Riku's attempts at transformation as funny as I did:3**

**Sora: you cruel little…**

**Usagi: I know. There's been another mention of the Mysterious Stranger and we might be closer to figuring out who he is…and he's not Naruto.**

**Mysterious Stranger: Believe it!**

**Usagi: Laharl has gone missing and no one knows where he is…wonder what happened to him (Innocent whistle)**

**Sora: I don't like the sound of that whistling…**

**Demyx: I told you going to the Netherworld was a bad idea. **

**Mysterious Stranger: oh it's not that bad… I see trees of green here…red roses too. **

**Demyx: GET AWAY FROM ME! (Hides in Merlin's bed)**

**Zexion: get out of here (kicks him out)  
Axel: say…is Demyx acting more scared than usual?**

**Usagi: no… he's always been like that…**

**Axel: I can't remember him ever being THAT scared…**

**Usagi: no no. Demyx's behaviour is completely natural and it's totally not foreshadowing. He's just scared of demons. **

**Sora: but no demon has harmed him before.**

**Usagi: He's acting completely normal. End of story. **

**Zakura: or is he? Maybe he DOES have a valid reason to be scared? OTHER than the possibility of meeting a gigantic demon fox?**

**Flonne: what could be scarier than that?**

**Demyx: I can think of some things…**

**Usagi: I don't doubt that. Please review people. **


	6. Demyx's secret

**Usagi: WELCOME BACK! This is the chapter you've all been waiting for…at least…the one two people have been waiting for…**

**Sora: and you're one of those two?**

**Usagi: yes…it's the return to the Netherworld! Finally we get to know why Demyx is so scared of going there and I'm going to make up for the long chapters with nothing but talking by adding a battle scene and revealing who the Mysterious Stranger is!  
Mysterious Stranger: yay!**

**Demyx: No way!**

**Usagi: But first…a message from Organization XIII. **

**Enjoy:**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

**Demyx's Secret**

* * *

As our heroes were on their way to the demon's home world, at another dark and creepy world a small ottsel was running trhough the hallways of the Castle that Never Was.

Xemnas was pissed. At least he would be, had he had he ability to feel emotion, instead, he just acted pissed, that tended to give him more attention from his subordinates, regardless if he was now way shorter than he was two years ago. He still managed to keep his authority, even though Xigbar made fun of him now and then.

But this time the cause of his would-be-annoyance was not the nobody turned wolf, but a certain pink rabbit that had been causing some headache for the organization.

"Where is he?" Xemnas asked the moment he spotted the husky-Labrador-mix dog, who was apparently conversing with a troop of Berserker nobodies.

"The lesser nobodies haven't found him yet superior" Saïx said. "But rest assured we will find the traitors and give them what they deserve."

"You said that two years ago" Xemnas said. "I hadn't expected Marluxia to be able to stay low for that long".

"He's got to get tired of it one day" Saïx said as the berserkers dispersed again. "Meanwhile we've gotten reports that some other of our enemies are on the move again."

"Really? Well keep an eye on them" Xemnas said. "And make sure they're not just travelling from place to place because they are bored again… it's like they've forgotten we existed".

Gordon's ship sure was bigger than the Highwind, but it wasn't faster.

"Are we there yet?" Sora groaned.

"Now boy, this ship might not be the fastest thing around but it sure is solid" Gordon said.

"Hey Riku, you should get one of those" Axel said, and earned himself a smack.

"Don't worry kids, its not that far" Jennifer said.

"Beep Beep. Expected arrival in ten minutes" Thursday said.

"Great!" Sora said.

"Hurray" Demyx muttered. "Why couldn't I just stay in Radiant Garden?"

"If you want to be part of the gang you have to join in a few adventures. What are you so afraid of anyway? We've been in the Netherworld before and nothing bad happened" Riku asked. "Its like Flonne said, demons aren't all bad."

"It's not the demons I'm worried about" Demyx said.

"Then what?" Riku asked.

"Its… forget it, you'll find out soon enough" Demyx said.

"There it is. Home sweet home" Etna said, pointing to a planet some distance in front of them.

From a distance it looked almost normal, it had water, forests and deserts just like any other world, but there were also quite a few red streams flowing trhough the landscapes, molten magma flowed freely on many areas, making the planet look rather unpleasant. But of course for the demons this was how they liked it.

Gordon landed his space craft near the overlord's castle, or more precisely, where the overlord's castle USED to be, since now it was only rubble.

"Wow, this looks bad" Riku said. "I don't want to be the ones that have to rebuild this".

As he said that the prinnies started crying.

"Now where did that fox go?" Sora asked.

"We don't know. It ran of after destroying the entire castle, along with the guy who controlled it" Etna said. "You should try asking the prinnies that came out of the rubble first".

"I have an idea, let's _not_ go looking for it" Demyx said.

"Did anyone see the direction it went?" Sora asked the prinny-squad, ignoring the beaver.

"I think I saw them heading towards those mountains dood" one prinny said.

"It almost looked like it was searching for something dood" said the other.

"I wonder what that might have been" Sora thought out loud looking over at the mountains that the prinnies mentioned.

"Well I don't know, what DO heartless normally search for?" a new, strangely familiar voice asked.

The group turned around and saw a man wearing a dark blue cloak standing on top of Gordon's space ship.

"Hey get down from there!" Gordon yelled.

"That's him! The stranger with the demon fox!" Flonne said.

"Who are you?" Sora asked.

"You don't know who I am?" The stranger asked. "I am the Sea of midnight! I am the tiger rider! I am the shiny diamond! I am the morning racer! I am the star of the masquerade! I'm the unholy diver! I'm the…"

"The one with so many titles yet still bothers to memorize them all?" Etna interrupted him.

"Looks like a loony to me" Riku said.

Demyx however suddenly turned very pale. "That's….its… No way…" he stuttered.

"Well if it ain't the melodious nocturne. I didn't expect you to come here…well actually I did see it coming but I'm surprised you dared to show your fuzzy face" the stranger said in a mocking tone.

"Demyx, do you know this guy?" Axel asked.

"Know me?!" the stranger said before Demyx had time to reply. "The beaver-boy and I go waaaaaaaay back". He then pulled of his hood, and removed the sun glasses he was wearing.

"What the? Does Demyx have a twin?" Flonne asked.

And it sure looked like that. The man standing on Gordon's ship looked almost exactly like Demyx, only his hairstyle looked sharper and the eyes were yellow.

"Goodness you're stupid" the stranger said. "Why don't you introduce me to your new friends Demyx?"

"H-he's not my brother" Demyx stuttered. "He's my…my heartless! Deym!"

* * *

**Usagi: dundundunduuuun**

**Zakura: okay… know you like cliffhangers but this isn't even two pages long! **

**Usagi: sigh…fine.**

* * *

"That guy is _your_ heartless?" Sora said in disbelief.

"Odd isn't it?" Deym said. "Such a good looking guy like me and a little wimp like him was once one person. Its strange how bodies and hearts part sometimes."

"Perfect, another humanoid heartless" Riku said. "And I hoped Xehanort was the only one."

"It won't be for long" Etna said. "Prinny-squad! ATTACK!"

"For the Overlord!" one of the prinnies said, the others just stared at him. "…Well okay if you don't like him…Do it so we won't get beat up again! Dood!"

Some of the prinnies jumped up on the space ship and started beating on the heartless with fish and whatever else they had in their pouches (which turned out to be a large arsenal of weapons one wouldn't think they could fit in there).

"Be careful with my ship!" Gordon said.

The group of prinnies surrounding Deym was suddenly thrown out of the way and fell of the space ship, soaked in water.

"Why do we have to fight? Why can't we be friends?" the heartless asked.

"Maybe because you attacked our friends first?" Sora pointed out.

"Oh right…Fuck, LET'S ROCK!" Deym yelled summoning a guitar similar to Demyx's sitar, only red and black, similar to the heartless symbol.

"Fine you asked for it" Sora said and summoned his keyblades, his friend summoned their weapons too, Etna pulled out a spear and Flonne a staff, whilst the prinnies readied their… fish.

Gordon's team readied too, Gordon had his gun out. "You'll pay for…standing... on top of my ship…scaring the girls" he said.

"We're not scared of him, just shot him already" Etna said.

Goron directed his gun at Deym and shot, but the bullet was washed away by a flow of water that seemed to come right out of nowhere.

"Not bad, now look what I can do!" Deym said and played a tone on his guitar, giving of an electric sound. Tons of water suddenly busted out of the ground forming a huge snake-like figure.

Sora and his friends, even the demons, couldn't help but gasp in shock as the water formed a gigantic dragon, which roared at them, how it was capable of doing so was a bit of a mystery, since it was made up solemnly of water, but that didn't make it less intimidating.

"Why didn't I ever think of that?" Demyx said.

"Probably because unlike with most heartless and nobodies I actually got the brain" Deym said. "Time to rock my water-dragon!"

The watery creature turned downwards to face the group.

"Oh no you don't!" Etna said and threw her spear towards it, however it went right trhough.

"You can't touch it! It's made up from nothing but water!" Flonne said.

"Then how are we going to beat it?" Jennifer asked.

"I have an idea" Sora said and pointed his keyblade towards the creature that was now moving towards him. "THUNDAGA!" he yelled as a gigantic thunderbolt hit the dragon, the water monster twisted and eventually vanished, nearly flooding the area where our heroes were standing, all of which were now swooped of their feet by the sudden fast water current.

Even though the entire area was now covered in water, it wasn't more than a couple of feet deep so Sora quickly got back up, Axel climbed up on his shoulder to avoid the water.

"Who's laughing now heartless?" Sora asked.

"Why don't you just start bragging after you've defeated the enemy?" Deym asked.

"What are you talking about you freeaaaaaaa" Riku said as he suddenly found himself flying trhough the air, as the water he had been standing in suddenly flew into the air like he was standing on a geyser, throwing him into the ground a few metres away.

"You're forgetting you're standing in my element you know" the heartless reminded them as the rest of the party also got thrown into the air the same way.

The demons came prepared however, folding their wings out to prevent hitting the ground, Flonne grabbed Sora's hand before he hit the ground, and Etna did the same to Riku as he got thrown into the air for the second time.

"Sora! Riku! This is a good time to try out those wings of yours" Etna said.

"Are these wings even big enough for that?" Riku asked.

"If your transformation spell worked correctly you should be able to make them bigger" Etna said. "And you better do it fast because you're heavy!"

Just as she said that Riku slipped out of her grip and fell towards the water again, just where a couple of sharp stones were coming up.

_Crap! Now or never!_ He thought and tried to concentrate on making the tiny red wings on his back bigger, he felt himself slowing down until he finally dropped down softly on top of the rocks, he found some flatter ones, and used them to stand on, a few metres to his right Sora dropped right back down into the water, and Axel landed on his back.

Thursday had pulled out a propel on his head and Gordon and Jennifer held on to him, it was evident however the robot was struggling as the trio landed.

"I think water has gotten into his machinery" Jennifer said as the robot safely landed on a rock, just a few centimetres above the water. "All this humidity isn't good for him."

"Oh my heart cries miss" Deym said, another current flew out of the water hitting the robot, and threw him back into the temporary dam. Thursday gave up a few sparks and then his lights went out. "THURSDAY!" Jennifer screamed.

"Leave to a human to be more worried about a chunk of metal than her own pathetic life" Deym said, sending another water current towards Jennifer, Gordon quickly pulled her out of the way.

"Now why did you have to do that? Thursday hadn't even done you anything!" the defender of earth said.

"Geez, I don't know, could it have something to do with me being a heartless?" Deym said, still playing on his guitar. Then Riku noticed something.

"Say Sora, isn't that an electric guitar?" he said to his friend.

Sora looked up and sure enough the guitar both looked and sounded more like an electric one than a regular wooden guitar.

"Hey you're right…are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sora asked.

"I think I am" Riku said smirking. "Ready to give these wings a real test-run?"

Folding out their newly acquired demon wings the two keybladers flew on top of the space craft where Deym was standing.

"Are you in a hurry to loose your heart again? Cause I can arrange that" Deym said.

"You're going down heartless!" Riku said as both friends directed their keyblades at him.

"My name isn't heartless, and I don't remember applying for a name-change" Deym said as he readied his guitar again. Two water-clones, similar to Demyx's showed up next to him.

"Why did it have to be water-clones? I would feel so much more useful if they were made from wood" Axel said, he was still hanging onto Sora's shoulder.

"Aw… Is the little ottsel scawed of water?" Deym asked.

"No, but I have power over fire! What the heck can I do against water?" Axel said.

"You could always drown yourself" Deym suggested, and a flow of water pushed Axel of Sora's shoulder making him fall of the space ship and down into the water again.

Being so small he was unable to stand up over the water like the others, so instead he swam to the surface till only his head was sticking up. "You'll pay for that! GET HIM ROXAS!" Axel yelled.

Sora just sighed. "If that wasn't my plan from the start that would have been rather annoying" he said. "Let's rock!"

"That's my line!" Deym said as the two water clones attacked the boys.

These clones seemed much stronger than Demyx's ones, and clearly needed more than two blows to defeat them.

"So where's that beating you promised me? Or do you have your hands full?" Deym asked mockingly.

"Not quite" Sora said, while he was still using the Kingdom Key to block the water clone's attacks, a light shone from his left hand, which transformed into the Oathkeeper.

He threw the Oathkeeper keyblade towards Deym, the heartless tried to dodge it, but found himself too close to the edge of the space ship so he fell of.

Sora and Riku couldn't see him land, but they could hear a splashing sound, and soon the water clones melted back to normal water.

"Did it work?" Sora asked. The Oathkeeper rematerialized in his hand.

Riku went and looked over the edge, and smirked.

"Perfectly" he said.

Deym was sitting in the water, that itself didn't seem to bother him but his guitar was giving of sparks and was obviously malfunctioning.

"No WAY!" he yelled. "You'll pay for that!"

"You'll be the one who has to pay if you mess with out friends, got it memorized?" Axel said, he had found a small rock he was standing on, right next to Demyx, but then he accidentally knocked the beaver of, so he fell into the water.

As Deym's monsters turned back into liquid water the currents were getting stronger, and Demyx found himself flowing towards the space ship before bumping into his heartless.

Deym screamed and got up. "You stay away from me you little freak!" he said before disappearing into a dark portal.

"What… what just happened?" Etna asked.

"Looks like Deym is as scared of his nobody as Demyx is of him" Riku said. "But whatever, we still beat him!"

"Yeah, but we didn't figure out where Laharl is, or Kyuubi's heartless for that matter" Sora said. "Also since he ran of we can't use him to get Demyx his heart back".

"No way! I told you I don't need it!" Demyx said. "If getting my heart back means fusing with THAT guy I'd rather stay a nobody for the rest of my life".

"You're kidding right?" Axel asked. "Apart from the "trying-to-murder-us"-thing he's at least way cooler than you. Even though he does say a lot of weird things…"  
"Oh that…he likes to quote song lyrics" Demyx said.

"Sora! Riku!"

Kairi suddenly came running trhough the quickly disappearing water, with Zexion close behind.

"I told my mom I was going to bed early and sneaked of here…what happened here?" she asked.

"And what's with all the water?" Zexion asked, stepping carefully as trying to avoid getting his feet wet…but since most of the ground was still covered in it that was pretty useless.

"That's a long story…" Riku said.

* * *

**Usagi: How did you like that? It didn't even end in a cliffhanger…not a real one anyway…**

**This chapter is 4.5 pages long and still Laharl hasn't showed up. Where is he you ask? I'm not telling…but there might be a hint to whatever happened to him on my DeviantArt-account.**

**Sora: I think I have an idea…**

**Usagi: as for Demyx's heartless….you weren't expecting THAT now where you? Neither did I…I'm not gonna take full credit for him, it was Rilaveke who first made him like that, and I just found him so cool I asked to use him in my fic as well. He's nearly the complete opposite of Demyx when it comes to personality, and yes…he quotes song lyrics…most of them are from Smash Mouth-songs… but a few others sneak in too. **

**It was probably a bit too ironic that his weapon is an electric guitar while his element is water…so I just had to make a joke out of that XD**

**Deym: My guitar! D:**

**Usagi: That was all the action we had for you today. Tune in next time for more…**

**Gordon: doesn't anyone want to know what happened to poor Thursday?!**

**Usagi: no.**

**Gordon: D: That's not very nice.**

**Sora: Usagi isn't very nice Gordon.**

**Gordon: that's not good at all. You are a very mean little girl.**

**Usagi: I know. And you are an idiot so I guess that makes us even.**

**Gordon: ...how does that change anything?**

**Usagi: Please review people! And tell me what you think about the fight scene! I don't do many of those… **


	7. Meeting the Tailed Demons

**Usagi: Welcome back everyone! To more demonic action in the Netherworld.**

**I've decided to bring in some of Kyuubi's old "friends" into the fanfic:3 Mind you, they are NOT Naruto-characters, the only Naruto-reference in this fic (yet...) is Kyuubi and Buxyuki's designs. Everyone else's designs will be partly based on the legends and partly created by me. Same goes for their personalities (I took a lot of liberty with most of them... but a few have background history inspired by old legends)**

**They are all based of random information I found on the internet and some my own imagination. Also I should probably mention each bijuu will be known by two names in this fic. One to describe how many tails they have (in japanse), and one other name. Most will be known by their names but Kaku refers to most of them by tail-number. (Random idea…I just felt like having someone who only refers to them by that) **

**Shukaku the Ichibi, meaning one tail. He's a racoon-dog demon or Tanuki (they are not racoons or badgers, but more closely related to dogs). I somehow got the idea that he was somewhat of a pervert in the legend because he's said to have a very active sex-life…so in this fic; he'll be somewhat of a pervert:3 **

**Nekomata the Nibi, meaning two tails. A cat, ironically there's a class in Disgaea called Nekomata, so I based Nibi-Nekomata of them. According to the legend it was a black cat with feather wings and two tails. I mixed it with the Disgaea designs by giving her dark red bat wings (instead of the feather wings) and two tails (the Disgaea-Nekomatas only have one tail). **

**Isonade the Sanbi; meaning three tails. A shark. And it will be a shark in this fic and not a freaky turtle thing. In the legend Isonade is always followed around by a fish called Samehada, so he will be in this fic too, but he won't appear in this chapter.**

**Soukou the Yonbi, meaning four tails. Described both as a lizard and a lizard-rooster cross in the legend… I haven't quite decided how he will look yet. **

**Houkou the Gobi; meaning five tails. A dog. The legends tells that he and Nekomata fought Kyuubi once but lost, so the two being attacked is based on that story (although the reasons are slightly altered) He does not appear in this chapter.**

**Raijuu ****the Rokubi; meaning 6 tails. A weasel with powers over thunder. He does not appear in this chapter.**

**Kaku the Shichibi; meaning 7 tails. Kaku is a badger, and in this fic the only one (yet) who refers to all the other bijuu by how many tails they have (the Japanese phrases). He's the smallest of the bijuu and lives underground. This still doesn't mean he's the weakest. He's very cunning and smart. **

**Yamata no Orochi the Hachibi; meaning 8 tails. A giant snake with eight tails and eight heads, and the most evil of the bijuu. According to the legends it was because of his powers the other bijuu awoke in the first place, and he's also very arrogant and the second strongest of them, only beaten by Kyuubi, that story has already been told back in LiD and he's apparently been resting ever since. (Since no one cares about trying to wake him up) **

**Kyuubi no Youko; Kyuubi means nine tails. Simply referred to as Kyuubi by everyone, you already know him.**

**Some of the bijuus' designs and personalities are based of the legends, others aren't, and I don't want any (especially not Naruto-fans) whining over how I don't portray them right, because 1: I don't care and 2; I don't feel Kishimoto portrayed them right either, and I HATED the way Nekomata and Isonade turned out in the manga. Legends come in different varieties you know. Nekomata was among my favourite bijuu so safe to say…I got awfully disappointed after seeing what Kishimoto did to it. **

**As I've seen many of the bijuu have shape shifting powers (Kyuubi, Nekomata and Kaku etc) I decided to let them all have at least two "standard" forms.**

**One will be their "monster forms" which is how Kyuubi has been appearing up until now, meaning gigantic animal-demons with X amount of tails.**

**The other will be a more humanlike form. Where they look mainly like humans with animal-ears and tails, occasionally some other effects too such as the Nekomata's wings. But as of yet Neko is the only one I've actually drawnX3 (Probably because she was easy to design, in that she's based of a Disgaea-character.)**

**But now the Author's note has lasted more than one page already so enjoy the chapter:**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**Meeting the Tailed Demons**

* * *

Nanami's house was big; one wouldn't expect that up until recently all who lived in it was one woman and a dog, and a very small dog at that.

Then again now they weren't the only ones living in the house anymore.

"Isn't it nice to have Kairi living with us again Fluffy?" Nanami said.

Fluffy, who was a small black and white female Papillion, barked happily, ignoring the fact that she had never met Kairi before so "again" wouldn't be very meaningful for her.

"You're right, it's been a while since we ate, wonder if she's hungry" Nanami said.

Fluffy barked again, both blissfully unaware what the other one was saying yet kept replying to each other so they wouldn't feel too lonely.

Nanami walked upstairs to where Kairi's room was (which up until recently had only been a guest room) and knocked on the door.

"Kairi honey? Would you like something to eat?"

But as anyone whose read the last chapter would know that there was no way anyone would reply.

"Hm…she must be sleeping. It's been a long day after all" Nanami said. "I better go check on her".

Nanami opened the door slightly and peeked inside. Lots of boxes were still stacked up against the walls, and the only pieces of furniture in there were a bed, a wardrobe and a pink cat bed that was chewed to bits.

Nanami went over and picked it up. "Aw… seems Schemer didn't like the bed I bought him, it was such a cute colour too" she said and looked over to the bed…only to see it was empty. "That girl is in so much trouble…"

* * *

Nanami's comment wasn't too far from the truth, as the girl in question was currently in the Netherworld, home world of the demons, and usually not known to be a very pleasant place.

Although currently she was in no danger. Currently.

"What? Are you serious?" she said in disbelief after having listened to her friends' tale.

"Oh I wish" Demyx said, sounding exhausted. He was lying on the ground completely stretched out, still soaking wet after the temporary flood.

All the water was now gone and the only clue it had ever been there was a couple of puddles and the ground being wet, plus Gordon and Jennifer who were busy drying of Thursday in a hope he could still be fixed.

"Xemnas never mentioned there being more than one humanoid heartless" Zexion said, raising an eyebrow.

"He doesn't know" Demyx said. "At least I don't think so. I've never told him."

"Lets hope it stays that way, since if Xemnas knows then maybe HIS heartless will find out, and I'd rather not have Xehanort getting another ally" Riku said.

"I wouldn't worry about that; Deym isn't much of a team player" Demyx sad.

"Neither is Xehanort but you'll never know what he'll do to gain more power" Riku said.

"So… what next?" Axel asked.

"We should start looking for the Laharl, who knows what trouble he could have gotten into" Flonne said.

"Then it's decided" Etna said getting up. "Laharl is cocky and loud, it shouldn't be that hard to find him".

* * *

The sun was setting over Laharl's kingdom, but the demons could see just fine in the darkness, another advantage to Sora, Riku and Kairi's transformations.

Both Demyx and Zexion were nocturnal creatures **(thanks Wikipedia for informing me that beavers are mainly nocturnal) **and could see perfectly as well, while Axel had made a torch out of his tail, which seemed to catch fire on random occasions.

The humans had stayed behind with their ship to fix their robot (and because Etna claimed they wouldn't be much use anyway, since they couldn't see in the dark, after they had gotten out of hearing range she also commented that she'd rather not have Gordon on the team because he was an idiot).

They decided to move towards the Bijuu's territory, seeing as Laharl was last seen fighting Kyuubi he might have followed it. Also they hoped to get more information about the fox's heartless.

"Be careful everyone" Flonne said. "Some of the more aggressive demons often come out at night."

"Let them come, we can handle anything that this world throws at us" Riku said.

Just as he said that however, a black portal opened in front of them and as the dust cleared, an enormous dark red fox, with glaring yellow eyes and nine long tails stood in front of them.

"Good job Riku, you just jinxed it" Sora said.

"So this is Buxyuki's heartless? Who would have known" Riku said. "Then again…it wouldn't be the first time" he added looking at Demyx.

"Aw come on! Not even my heartless is that extreme…at least not size-wise" Demyx said.

"Any idea how to defeat this thing?" Kairi asked.

"No, the Kyuubi is the strongest bijuu alive, and among the absolute strongest demons, even Laharl would have had problems against this one one-on-one" Etna said.

The Kyuubi growled and charged a them, but was unable to attack as just then the ground collapsed and the keybladers with friends suddenly fell down into a hole that had appeared just bellow them.

Looking up they saw the hole closing behind them before finally hitting solid ground again.

"What just happened?" Flonne asked nervously.

"You should just be grateful I just saved your sorry asses" said an unknown voice. "You don't want to encounter the nine-tailed on a bad day and after he turned into a heartless EVERY day is a very bad day indeed."

The gang turned around in surprise and spotted a badger. A blue badger none the less, the size of a medium sized dog and with seven tails growing out back.

"Who or what are you?" Riku asked.

"What am I?" the badger asked, sounding offended. "Have you never heard of the seven-tailed badger kid?"

"To be frank, no I haven't" Riku said.

"Oh I've heard of you! You're Kaku the Shichibi, the smallest of the bijuu who hides underground like a coward" Etna said.

"I AM NOT A COWARD!" Kaku yelled. "The earth is my element you know, so I HAVE to stand down here, foxes run about above-ground while badgers crawl under ground. That's the laws of nature."

"But even badgers come up occasionally don't they?" Kairi asked.

"Yes, you should listen you your friend demon, how else would you have heard of me if I never even left these caves. Now come on, you don't honestly think the Kyuubi is incapable of digging?" Kaku asked and turned to leave into one of his tunnels.

"He's kind of strange" Axel said.

"I guess there's weirdoes even among the tailed demons then" Etna said.

The group followed the badger trhough the tunnels, and while they were walking Kairi decided to try and start a conversation with him.

"So do you know what happened to Kyuubi?" she asked.

"Nope. One morning he just suddenly came out and tried to beat us all up, nothing really new there…but the dark fur and yellow eyes still creeped us out a bit, classic heartless signs" Kaku said.

"He…beats you up regularly?" Kairi asked.

"All bijuu constantly try to kill each other" Etna said sounding like that was the most obvious thing in the world. "They're obsessed with finding out which of them are the strongest."

"That's barbaric" Kairi said.

"That's the Netherworld" Kaku replied. "But if you want to know exactly what happened to the king you'd better ask Nibi, she was there when it happened. We're headed towards her place now."

"So… this Nibi is she a friend of yours?" Kairi asked.

"Not really, but after Kyuubi turned into a heartless the rest of us had to join forces not to get killed" Kaku said. "He usually won't bother us if we don't bother him, but then one day he attacked Gobi and Nibi with no provocation at all, aiming for their hearts. Nibi got saved by a grim reaper friend of hers but I don't know what happened to Gobi."

"How many of you are there anyway?" Sora asked.

"We used to be nine" Kaku said. "But then Kyuubi beat up Hachibi and we haven't seen him since, rumours has it he's sleeping somewhere, good riddance, he was a mean snake indeed, even for us bijuu. Then Kyuubi got turned into a heartless and no one's seen Gobi in ages… so there are six of us left now. Plus a few lesser demons of course."

"Lesser demons?" Kairi asked.

"It's said to only be nine bijous" Etna said. "But there are several tailed demons though; the 9 bijuus are considered their leaders. There are several animal demons in these lands, more foxes too, but as far as I know only one has lived long enough to gain nine tails, they get one every 100 years or so."

"But then…Kyuubi must be over 900 years old!" Kairi said in shock.

"Waaaay more than that, Kyuubi is a few thousand years old at least" Kaku said shrugging, Kairi just stared at the badger in shock.

"Do all bijuus live that long?" she asked.

"All demons have long lives compared to humans Kairi" Etna explained. "For instance: Laharl is 1316 years old, I'm 1473 and Flonne is…"

"DON'T SAY IT!" Flonne yelled.

"…sensitive about her age" Etna finished.

"We're here" Kaku said finally, as they were nearing the light at the end of the tunnel.

The tunnel ended in what appeared to be the inside of a house, and Kaku spilled quite a lot of clay on the carpet as he entered.

That didn't go un-noticed very long though, as the head of a woman appeared on the door. At first sight she looked normal, except the fact that her white long hair was accompanied by a pair of black and white cat-ears, they couldn't see her body.

"Aw, not again! I just cleaned that carpet" she said.

"Then stop cleaning it or move it elsewhere, why on earth you put a carpet just outside the tunnel is beyond me" Kaku explained.

"YOU dug the tunnel there" the girl said.

"Whatever. I brought the Overlord's vassals, you said you wanted to see them right?" Kaku said.

The cat-girl looked up as if she noticed the gang for the first time.

"Oh that's great! Welcome to my home everyone!" she said and entered the room.

Just now the gang could see how she looked like from neck and down.

The main body was like the one of a normal human girl, a very sexy human girl one might add, wearing only a bikini. However her feet and arms resembled the paws of a cat, with mostly black fur and white tips. On her back she had a pair of dark red demon wings, and no less than two thick cat-tails, like the ears and feet they were black with white tips.

"Oh, you're a nekomata aren't you?" Flonne asked.

"Not just any Nekomata dear, I'm the _two_ tailed Nekomata" the cat-woman replied. "But you boys may call me hot stuff."

The boys just stared at her in shock.

"Don't mind if I do" Axel said.

"Sorry, I don't date rodents" Nekomata replied.

"I'm not a rodent…" Axel said.

"We're not here to pick up ladies Axel, we heard you had some info on whatever happened to Kyuubi" Etna said.

"Oh that's right! It all started a couple of years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. It was horrible! I was just on my way to a date with him…" Nekomata started but got interrupted by Kaku.

"Yeah right! You wanted to fight him again didn't you?" the badger said.

"How can you say something that cruel?" Nekomata said. "Kyuubi is sooo handsome and strong, I wouldn't stand a chance against him."

"Also he would never go on a date with you" another voice said. Another demon stood in the door, humanoid like Nekomata, with black sharp ears and one brown black-tipped tail. "Welcome back Shichi, now why are you still in that form?" he asked.

"I've told you not to call me that Ichibi, its ShichiBI!" Kaku said annoyed, but then the clay on the carpet surrounded him and as it cleared a humanoid demon with badger ears and the seven tails stood in his place.

"I'll stop calling you Shichi the moment you stop calling me Ichibi, its getting old" the new demon said. "Oh and by the way, my name is Shukaku, also known as the one-tailed tanuki!"

"There's nothing special about a one-tailed tanuki" Riku said.

As he said that, Shukaku suddenly turned around and started sulking in a corner.

"He's a little sensitive about that" Nekomata whispered. "He's the only one of us who only has one tail."

She suddenly turned around, as she saw a hand made from sand, trying to touch one of her tails. She grabbed the hand probably out of reflex and it dissolved, then she grabbed Shukaku by the scruff of his neck.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" she yelled.

"What am I doing? You're the one who's always flirting with everyone" Shukaku said stubbornly.

"NOT WITH PERVERTS LIKE YOU!" Nekomata yelled and threw the tanuki through the wall.

"Now…about Kyuubi?" Riku asked, he felt he had gotten used to the demons acting needlessly violent towards each other now, even as Kairi stared at the hole created in the wall in shock and Sora and Axel looked about to break out in laughter.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that" Nekomata said innocently, as Shukaku just stared at her in disbelief through the hole in the wall.

"Where was I? Yeah I was on my way towards the area I knew he was staying at, and then I spotted him fighting some kind of human or humanoid demon, I couldn't see from that far.

He was no bijuu, since I couldn't see a tail on him, but he was strong. He summoned some kind of big water dragon of some sort…"

"That sounds like our old friend Deym now doesn't it?" Sora said.

Demyx merely nodded.

"So like, as any idiot should know Kyuubi is fire element, so his attacks had no effects on this dragon thing, also his claws just went through it like it was made from nothing but water.

I couldn't see directly what happened afterwards, the dragon just surrounded Kyu until I couldn't see him anymore, eventually the dragon disappeared and so did Kyuubi for a while, and then…that thing appeared" Nekomata told. "Houkou the Gobi tried to help me fight him but we weren't able to beat him".

"So Deym was involved…did you know about this?" Riku asked Demyx.

Demyx was shivering.

"I didn't want to tell you, since I knew if I did you'd force me to try and fight it" he said. "I'm not a good fighter; I couldn't stand a chance against that fox!"

"Don't worry Demyx, we won't let you fight Kyuubi or Deym on your own" Kairi said.

"Another thing though, you two are vassals of Overlord Laharl aren't you?" Nekomata asked looking at Etna, Flonne and the prinnies.

"That's right" Etna replied.

"Then why isn't he with you?" Nekomata asked.

"Actually…that's what we'd like to know too" Etna said. "Kyuubi's heartless showed up at his castle and destroyed it, we haven't seen him since."

"What good would that do? That kid won't stand a chance against Kyuubi" Kaku said.

"Hey, Laharl isn't as weak as he looks" Flonne said. "We must have faith in him!"

"We're talking the king of the tailed demons here, nine tails and unlimited power, and he didn't exactly shrink after turning heartless" Kaku said.

"We were hoping he could help us turn him back to normal, if not, kill him" Nekomata said. "If he turns into a heartless it won't be long before the rest of us follow."

"And if the rest of the bijuu follows…then it won't be long before all demons turn into heartless…and if they…oh snap!" Riku said.

"Is something wrong Riku?" Kairi asked.

"I can't believe it! How could I be so stupid I forgot?" Riku asked. "Remember when we first met Deym and he asked us what heartless normally search for?"

"More hearts?" Sora said.

"Not just any heart" Riku said. "The heart of the Netherworld.

The keybladers and nobodies gasped, the demons just looked confused.

"The Netherworld doesn't have a heart, it's a planet" Etna corrected them.

"I'm afraid you're wrong, all worlds have a heart, and if it's lost… You don't want to know what happens" Riku said.

"Is there any way to keep the heartless from taking it?" Flonne asked.

"There is, but then we'd have to find if before the heartless do" Riku said. "And we have nowhere to look."

"A shadow heartless might be able to sniff it out" Sora said. "At least if it's close by".

"That might be but how are we going to find a shadow to help us? They're not exactly easy to tame" Riku reminded him.

"Actually…it's funny you should mention that" Zexion said. "I know where we can find one".

* * *

**Usagi: I'm sure you do kitty…**

**I hope you liked that, Fluffy's been introduced which is what you've all been waiting for right?**

**Zexion: (glares)**

**Usagi: I just want to mention some things regarding the demon's ages here. These are based of their actual ages in Disgaea (and FYI: Flonne is currently 1512 years old) Darkness of the Heart takes place 3 years after Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. **

**And what shadow heartless could Zexion be talking about?...its not a big secret, he's shown up once in the Author's note earlier already. **

**Where is he? Well you'll have to wait to find that out since this chapter has gotten long enough as it is. PLEASE REVIEW! And I'll let you pet this cat (holds up a small black cat with two tails.**

**Nekomata: come on boys, you know you want to. **

**Shukaku: and she calls me pervert… **


	8. Return of the Demon Kings

**Usagi: WHO WANTS PIZZA?**

**Zakura: WHO CARES?**

**Usagi: …I do. Well then…. WHO WANTS A NEW CHAPTER OF DOH?**

**Zakura: that's more like it.**

**Usagi: good. I've been working on this for quite some time… it as a battle scene in it, which is why it was harder than the rest. It introduces some new characters and reintroduces some old ones… and one very important one.**

**Sora: the title was kind of a spoiler…**

**Usagi: it is…. If you think about it. And it introduces another shadow to the story!**

**Sora: why are you so damn obsessed with shadows?**

**Usagi: oh you'll like this one, don't worry.**

**Sora: I will?**

**Usagi: of course coughnotcough**

**Sora: …**

**Usagi: enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**Return of the Demon Kings.**

* * *

"So…how long was it since you noticed this thing was following us?" Riku asked.

"I could smell him soon after Kyuubi attacked, he was probably following us above ground" Zexion explained. "His sense of smell probably isn't as good as mine, but I'm sure he must have sensed that I was around, or he wouldn't come after us."

"And do you honestly think he's going to fall for **that**?" Riku asked again, pointing to a box on a stick, with a sea-salt ice cream inside.

The party was hiding out in the bushes next to the box-trap, waiting for the shadow heartless that apparently had been following Zexion.

"Trust me, this is a shadow we're talking about, they're not the brightest of creatures" Sora said. "As for the ice cream… heartless love sea salt ice cream."

"All of them?" Riku asked.

"Yes, at least the ones I saw in the Castle that Never Was back then" Sora assured him.

"I still think it's the lamest trap ever" Riku said, just as he said that however, a shadow heartless bounced out of a nearby bush, straight for the ice cream and before it knew what was happening, it was trapped under the box.

"You were saying?" Sora asked.

"That heartless are even dumber than you" Riku added.

"Hey!" Sora protested as Kairi and Zexion walked up to the box.

Kairi lifted it slightly. "So… This is Ienzo?" she asked.

"What's left of him" Zexion said, and knocked the box out of the way.

"Hey, are you sure it's smart to let it out?" Demyx asked nervously.

"Don't worry, he's harmless" Zexion said, looking at his heartless who was still happily eating the ice cream bait.

"Just be careful he doesn't swallow that ice cream stick" Sora said, just as Ienzo spit the empty stick into his face.

"I don't think that'll be much of a problem" Zexion said.

"And you think this thing is going to help us find this so called "heart" of the Netherworld?" Etna asked.

"I still think we should find Laharl first, if something is threatening his Netherworld surely he would want to save it" Flonne said.

"You can stop looking, Love-Freak" another voice said.

The party (and the bijuu and the shadow) turned around and saw the young overlord standing on the roof of Nekomata's house.

"Laharl! You're okay!" Flonne said happily and was about to run up to him before Sora grabbed her hand.

"Wait Flonne, something's not right here" he said.

"What are you talking about? He looks unhurt to me" Flonne said nervously.

"Of course I'm unhurt, I'm the Overlord, it takes more than some mangy fox to harm me" Laharl said smirking so widely Sora could see his sharp teeth even from his standing point on the ground, but that didn't bother him (thanks to the transformation his teeth were equally sharp). What he was looking at was Laharl's eyes, yellow eyes.

"He's a heartless!" he yelled, Flonne quickly took a few steps back and everyone around them readied their weapons (except Ienzo the shadow who hid underneath the box again).

Laharl's heartless sighed. "And I was hoping we could do this the easy way…Nah, who am I kidding? Bring it on human-boy" he added, and as he drew his sword, Kyuubi came out of a portal.

"Oh no… this is going to get ugly" Shukaku said.

"I guess all we can really do is fight together and hope for the best" Nekomata said.

The three tailed demons started transforming;

Kaku was surrounded by clay and returned to his blue badger-form.

Shukaku created a shield of sand around him and as it dissolved a large tanuki with purple markings around its eyes appeared in his place **(note: does not look like the Shukaku in Naruto, since I made a new design for most of the others, I gave him a new one too. DEAL WITH IT).**

Nekomata got surrounded by a mist of darkness, and transformed into a big black and white cat; her wings grew way larger too **(Does DEFINITELY not look like the Naruto-Nibi.)**

"Well this is going to be great, you three will make great vassals once you turn heartless" Laharl said.

"Don't count on it! No one gets to touch a hair on Nekomata on my watch!" Shukaku growled and stood up protecting between Nekomata and the two heartless.

"Idiot, you're one of the weakest bijuu, so in truth it should me I who should protect YOU, if I felt like it that is" Nekomata said.

"This is no time to be fighting between ourselves" Kairi warned them. "We must stay together."

The bijus cast a glance towards Kyuubi, who was simply growling at them.

"Got it!" the three said at once, it was apparent that they weren't thrilled on facing their fallen king one by one.

Kyuubi was tired of staring at the other animal demons and charged towards them, fangs bared.

Laharl too jumped down from the roof of Nekomata's house and faced Sora, who had summoned both the Kingdom Key and Oathkeeper.

"This wouldn't happen to be about the chicken now would it?" Sora asked.

"That too" Laharl said and attacked Sora with a sword that was almost as big as the Overlord himself, Sora blocked it with the Oathkeeper. "Also I just generally like to beat people up."

The bijous were having a struggle of their own, basically just trying to dodge all of Kyuubi's attacks, occasionally trying (and failing) to attack.

Nekomata tried showing of her rather unusual talents, opening a third eye on her forehead she summoned several partially solid ghosts to her side.

Some of the ghosts tried to attack Kyuubi but the fox seemed to find them nothing but a minor annoyance, he grabbed one of them and ripped it to threads. The remaining ghosts dispersed.

"Bloody cowards!" Nekomata yelled after them, before being knocked out by one of Kyuubi's tails.

"Nekomata!" Shukaku yelled and ran up to her. "How dare you attack a lady?" he said to Kyuubi.

"Well in all honesty she DID attack him first" Kaku said.

"Who's side are you on?" the tanuki asked.

"Can these guys go two minutes without bickering?" Riku asked.

"Well no. This is actually an improvement from earlier when we'd just fly at each other's throats instead" Kaku said. "Like that" he added, pointing towards Shukaku and Kyuubi who seemed to be just rolling around, each trying to throw in a punch/bite at each other.

"It's just like watching you and Sora" Kairi added, Riku just glared at her.

"Maybe we should help him out" he said, drawing Road to dawn.

"I'm on it" Kaku said and ran towards the fox and the tanuki, closely followed by Riku. Kairi and the nobodies decided to join them as well.

Meanwhile Sora was still struggling against Laharl, being assisted by Etna and Flonne, only the ex-angel wasn't being of much help.

"Laharl stop it! Don't you realise you're fighting your friends?" Flonne yelled.

"You're not really helping Flonne" Etna said, blocking one of the heartless' attacks. "Finally, a chance to beat up the prince! And since it's for his own good I won't even get punished for it".

"Wouldn't be too sure about that dood, don't forget who you're talking about" one of the prinnies said nervously.

"Think, he must have some kind of weakness" Sora said.

"He does, but Nekomata is knocked out" Etna said.

Sora just looked at her confused.

"I'll explain later" Etna said, throwing her spear towards Laharl, who blocked it with his sword. **(And because I am not in a fight and therefore have good time I can tell you this: Laharl's weakness is pretty ladies.) **

"You might as well give up, you can't defeat me any more than that shadow hiding under that box over there can" Laharl said.

At the corner of his eye, Sora was sure he was Ienzo peek out from underneath the box and stick his tongue out at the heartless demon, before disappearing under the box again.

"At least I'm not the one hiding in a box" Sora muttered, out loud he said "We're not giving up this easily Laharl, its about time you witness the true power of the keyblade."

The Kingdom Key glowed and transformed into a black scary looking keyblade.

Sora most definitely understood his nobody's choice of keyblade, the Oathkeeper was great when it came to magic, and Oblivion automatically increased the bearer's strength, together the two keyblades were a perfect match, but would it be enough to defeat the heartless of the Demon Overlord himself?

Laharl for sure didn't seem to think so.

"So your toy can transform, so what?" he said. "I was considering turning you into a heartless, but I've seen your heartless form and it's useless, so I think I'll just kill you instead" the demon said, and charged at Sora.

Sora was ready, he used the keyblades as a shield and used the Oblivion Keyblade to hook on to Laharl's gigantic sword and threw him out of the way, the demon tumbled and fell into a bush.

"What's wrong Laharl? Is that sword a little too big for you?" Sora asked.

"Shut up!" Laharl yelled and turned towards the giant fox, which was still fighting the others. "Hey dog-breath! Get finished over there and help me!" he yelled.

Kyuubi growled, obviously not happy about being called "dog-breath" but still seemed determined to carry out the order.

He grabbed Shukaku (who was the nearest) by the tail and threw him towards the others.

"Kairi! Riku!" Sora yelled.

"Worry about them later, HE'S COMING THIS WAY DOOD!" one of the prinnies yelled.

Sure enough, having knocked out the tanuki, Kyuubi turned and started moving towards Sora, Etna and Flonne, plus the prinnies who were cowering together behind them.

"You will pay for that" Sora said.

"And what are you going to do about it kid?" The fox asked, laughing evilly.

"You…can you talk?" Sora asked.

"Of course I can talk! I'm a demon heartless! I'm not like any of those worthless shadows you've been hanging with" Kyuubi said. "And that's not all I can do". He charged up and a gigantic fireball flew out of his mouth towards Sora and the demons.

"WATCH OUT!" Etna yelled, she caught one of the prinnies and threw it at the fireball, the prinny exploded as it hit the fireball and disappeared.

"Nice hit" Sora said, a bit shocked at how the prinny had just blown up.  
"DOOD!" another prinny yelled.

"Hey, it was either him or all of us" Etna said.  
"She was female dood" the prinny added.

"I don't care" Etna said.

"I hope you've got more of those things since blowing up prinnies is one of my favourite pass-times, second to roasting my enemies, like you" Kyuubi said.

"Then you're going to love this" Etna said, she grabbed the prinny that had been complaining earlier and threw it directly at Kyuubi's face.

"And that's what happens to complainers" Etna said to the remaining prinnies, who were too scared to say anything.

The explosion didn't seem to do much damage, but it didn't pass unnoticed.

"That HURT!" Kyuubi yelled. "For that, I'm gonna roast you first."

"Make sure it's painful!" Laharl yelled.

"Okay…so much for not being punished for it" Etna growled.

Before she even had time to think about escaping, Kyuubi ran around her and stepped on her tail.

"Oh it'll get painful alright" he said with a smirk. "And you two stay out of this, that goes for the prinnies too" he added as he used his tails to grab on to Sora and Flonne so they wouldn't interfere. "I want you to watch this, so you can see how you're going to die later.

"Etna! Don't hurt her!" Flonne said, struggling to get free from the fox's grip, but the tails were extremely powerful, she might as well be pushing on a brick wall.

The remaining prinnies decided enough was enough, and ran for it.

"Looks like this is it" Sora said. "But if I may say one thing she should be glad Kyuubi didn't decide to turn her into a heartless".

"Really? I don't know what you are talking about" Laharl said. "Just finish…what's that sound?"

Everyone silenced, even Kyuubi turned around to see where the sound came from, it sounded like the engine of a space ship…or a gummi ship.

"The Highwind!" Sora said, and sure enough, the multi-coloured space craft suddenly cut trhough the dense clouds and few towards them. As soon as it came within firing range it started shooting towards Kyuubi's body, careful not to hit Sora or the demons.

"Hey! That's cheating!" Laharl said. "Have it your way, I'll be back!" he said, and both heartless disappeared into portals, making Flonne and Etna fall to the ground.

"Phew, that was a close call" Etna said. "Now where did those darn prinnies go? They're in for some beating!"

"Good to see you're doing okay" Sora said, smiling nervously as the gummi ship landed behind them, and Mickey came out quickly followed by Donald and Goofy.

"Sora! Are you alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine, but how's Riku and Kairi?" Sora asked, looking over at where Shukaku was, the tanuki struggled up to his feet, allowing Riku, Kairi and the rest who were under him come out.  
"We're fine, luckily there was a small hole in the ground just where Shukaku landed" Kairi said.

"That's a relief, I'd hate to be the one who had to tell your mother if something happened to you" Mickey said. "Speaking of which…"

"I'm in trouble now, aren't I?" Kairi asked, gazing over at Zexion.  
"Hey, this was your idea from the start. Don't blame me" Zexion said.

"We'll talk about that later, right now it seems your friends need some help" Mickey said, as Nekomata and Kaku started waking up too.

"Ow, I hurt in my eight tail, and I only have seven" Kaku groaned.

"I must have gotten hurt harder than I think, I see a giant mouse" Nekomata said, staring at Mickey, as all three demons reverted to their humanoid forms.

"Hey, no eating! He's a friend" Sora warned her. "These are our friends, Donald, Goofy and King Mickey. Meet Kaku, Nekomata and Shukaku."

"Then I take it that big fox must have been Kyuubi…and Laharl?" Goofy said.

"Yup, I'm afraid we came too late to save him from turning into a heartless" Sora said sadly.

"And what's that?" Goofy asked, looking at Ienzo who had just decided it was safe to get out of the box.

"Oh, I totally forgot about him" Kairi said and picked up the shadow. "Guys, meet Ienzo."

"Ienzo? You mean that's Zexion's heartless?" Mickey said. "That's wonderful! That means there's a chance he can get his heart back, if we tell Nanami that surely she won't be as mad at you for running away".

"We're not telling her!" Zexion said.

"But…" Mickey started.

"No buts! She doesn't need to know who I am, at least not before I DO get my heart back" Zexion interrupted. "I know Larxene told her how it MIGHT work but I don't trust her."

"Then what if we went to see Vexen? You and him were old friends weren't you?" Kairi asked.

"Yes, but where do we find HIM?" Zexion said.

"You know… I have an idea" Axel said.

"Oh hurray, we're saved" Riku said sarcastically.

"Just hear me out okay? We don't know where Vexen is but we know where Kyuubi is…well kind of, and who follows Vexen around? At least the last time we saw him?" Axel asked.

"Marluxia and Larxene?" Demyx suggested.

"…Them too, but I'm talking about Buxyuki! Kyuubi's nobody! He and Kyuubi have an inner connection so if we catch the heartless THAT might lead us to the nobody!" Axel said. "Its genius! Got it memorized?"

"It's crazy! And I told you I don't want to hear that line ever again" Riku said. "We're talking about Kyuubi's heartless here, who just five minutes ago tried to kill us all, and roast Etna alive, why would HE join us?"

"Because we can help him get his heart back?" Axel said.

"It doesn't look like he's very interested" Sora said. "But he still needs to be stopped, same goes for Laharl and Deym, or the Netherworld is in big trouble".

"Then it's decided, first we stop the heartless, then we could go look for Vexen and the gang" Mickey said.

"It won't be easy to defeat Kyuubi, even with all of us…now where are those morons?" Nekomata asked.

Before anyone got time to ask who "those morons" were, a large tidal wave suddenly appeared.

"Oh no! Not Deym again" Demyx said.

"Don't worry, it's not him" Nekomata said in a bored manner.

Sure enough, someone was riding the wave, but it wasn't Deym. As it came closer it became gradually smaller until a surf board slid across the ground.

On the board stood a blue haired demon wearing a bathing shorts, he had three fish-tails and a pair of horns on his head. On the front end of the board stood a half metre long blue fish.

"Hi dudes, what's up?" the demon asked.

"What's UP?" Nekomata asked, sounding furious. "I'll tell you what's up! While you were out…surfing or whatever… we were attacked! There was only luck that Kyuubi didn't murder us! Where have you been and where are Raijuu and Souko?"

"Geez, chill cat-girl. We were just trying to gather supplies okay? Raijuu and Souko should be here shortly" the fish-boy said. Then he spotted the keybladers and their friends. "Oh, you found the overlord's vassals? Is he coming to help?"

"The overlord has been turned into a heartless" Nekomata said.

"Oh" the fish boy just said.

"Aaaaw, this is bad" said the small fish on his surfboard. "NOW what are we going to do?"

Suddenly two more demons arrived on the scene.

A large weasel stormed into the area like a lighting bolt, on his back sat another humanoid, carrying a bag of what appeared to be pizza.

"What did I hear about the overlord getting turned into a heartless?" the weasel asked.

"Would you mind going a BIT slower next time?" the demon on his back groaned.

"You heard correctly Raijuu, guys, meet the rest of our little gang" Nekomata said. "The guy with the surf board is the tree-tailed shark Isonade, and his sidekick Samehada, this is Raijuu, the six-tailed weasel and Souko the four-tailed…er…"

"Cockatrice" the demon on the weasel's back muttered.

"A what?" Riku asked.

"The four-tailed chicken-snake" Shukaku said helpfully. "Glad to see you Souko, it's just not the same without you. When you're around I'm no longer the biggest freak around!"

"How good for you!" the four tail said sarcastically. "I am so glad my misfortune makes SOME of us happy."

"Don't mind them, Souko is the only demon Shukaku has been able to defeat in battle" Nekomata explained to the party. "They go on like this all the time. Shukaku loves to tease Souko, and Souko loves…well, when Shukaku's far away."

"Weren't there supposed to be nine bijuu?" Donald asked.

"That's right, but Gobi is injured and no one knows where Hachibi is hiding" Kaku said. "We don't want to know either.

"That is a pity, Nekomata is the strongest in our party but both Houkou and Orochi are even stronger than she is" Rajuu said, he had now transformed into a humanoid like the rest, looking like a young man with golden spiky hair, and six spiky weasel tails. "They could highly increase our chances of defeating Kyuubi."  
"Just a question, but what will happen if we don't stop the heartless?" Flonne asked nervously.

"Short version: The Netherworld is doomed" Sora said.

* * *

**Usagi: DUN DUN DUN DUUUUN**

**Sora: I think anyone who's played trhough Destiny Islands day 3 in Kingdom hearts should know what awaits the Netherworld if we don't catch those heartless FAST!**

**Usagi: Yup. So you better hurry up keybladers.**

**Sora: yikes…**

**Usagi: Now we finally have most of the bijuus introduced, except the dog Houkou (Gobi) and the snake Yamata no Orochi (Hachibi). I had some fun designing Samehada… He wasn't supposed to be any important character but he just turned out so cute:3 You can see a pic of him on my Deviantart Account (link in my profile) so we'll definitely be seeing more of him in the future.**

**Samehada: You don't say…all we've seen so far is me sitting on a surfboard, and I only got one line!**

**Usagi: aw…poor thing. (Pets Samehada and snuggles Ienzo)**

**Isonade: (flinch) you're not trying to steal my sidekick are you?**

**Usagi: no… of course not**

**Isonade: then why is there a giant aquarium behind your back?**

**Usagi: I want a pet dolphin!**

**Isonade: riiiight.**

**Usagi: Please review everyone! And the first person who complains that Shukaku, Nekomata and Isonade looks different from what they do in Naruto WILL GET THIS HOT PIZZA IN THEIR FACE! (Takes a burnt pizza out of the oven)  
**


	9. Fighting Water with Water

**Usagi: I don't have anything clever to say so here's a new chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 9**

**Fighting Water with Water**

* * *

The gang had gathered inside Nekomata's house to explain the newcomers what had happened and find out what to do next.

As soon as they were done telling what happened, the tailed demons immediately started an argument.

"Have you lost your mind? We can't ask him to help us he'd murder us all!" Shukaku yelled.

"How do you know? Did you ask?" Soukou yelled back. "Orochi won't pass down a chance to beat Kyuubi and you know it."

"I hate to admit it but Shukaku is right for once" Nekomata said. "It's too dangerous."

"As much as I hate to intrude on your "discussion", just who is Orochi?" Riku asked.

"Yamata no Orochi" Kaku explained. "The Hachibi, a giant eight-tailed, eight-headed snake and the meanest bijuu you've ever known".

"Eight-tailed eight-headed snake? Sounds like eight snakes in my ears" Axel said.

"Oh no, he's one demon alright, well more or less, at least all heads agree on one thing, weaker demons like us are just fleas ready to be swapped!" Shukaku said, directing the final one on Soukou.

"So he's a little aggressive, like the rest of us aren't the same" the four-tail said shrugging. "But he's not the strongest bijuu there is, Kyuubi defeated him, but with our forces combined we could finally defeat that heartless!"

"Hear hear!" Raijuu said.

"If you side with the Hachibi you're going to end up getting killed!" Samehada cried, he'd been placed in a large fish tank Nekomata's living room, which was noticeably devoid of fish, and was now sitting over the edge.

"You don't have voting rights" Soukou said. "You're not even a bijuu!"

"I agree with Samehada" Isonade said, and Soukou glared at him.

"Well in that case…my vote counts as two!" the four-tail said stubbornly.

"It's still three against three, four counting Samehada, and since I'm the leader I say no go" Nekomata said.

"Who made you the boss?" Raijuu asked.

"I'm the strongest of us, unless you want to challenge me?" Nekomata snarled.

"Oh that could get good" Etna said.

"This is no time to be fighting! We need to find a way to defeat the heartless before it's too late!" Flonne said.

"You're asking demons to stop fighting?" Kaku asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Forgive her, she's a fallen angel" Etna said.

"That explains quite a bit" Kaku said nodding.

"Arguing still doesn't get us anywhere" Kairi said. "We've got to think here, we need to defeat the heartless, seemingly our strongest enemies are Deym, Laharl and Kyuubi. What we've got on our team are six tailed demons, four keybladers, a magican, a knight, one fallen angel and a humanoid demon with an army of prinnies, so we have an advantage of numbers."

"Yeah, but they have Kyuubi, you saw how he beat us down last time" Nekomata said.

"BUT with Orochi's help we could stand a chance" Soukou said. "After all he's almost as strong as Kyuubi".

"And what do you think he's going to do with us once he's finished Kyuubi?" Shukaku asked. "We're NOT waking him up, and that's final!"

"Why not ask some of the keybladers?" Samehada suggested.

"What's the point? They didn't even know him like we did!" Soukou said. "This is a matter between bijuus onlyyAAAAAAAH!"

Suddenly the four-tailed got knocked over, as a tiny creature ran into the demon's feet from behind, before zooming towards Sora and bouncing up into his lap.

"WHO'S THAT CREATURE WHO DARES INTERRUPT ME? LET ME EAT IT! NO! LET ME POISON IT AND THROW IT INTO A VULCANO! THAT'LL SHOW IT NOT TO MESS WITH US!" Soukou yelled as Shukaku and Raijuu held the squirming demon down, and Sora got to investigate whatever just ran into him.

"Trixi? What are you doing here?" Sora said in surprise, as he picked up the smirking cat.

"Aw… it's just a cat" Nekomata said.

"OH THAT ROTTEN LITTLE…"

"Soukou shut up!" Nekomata yelled. "Could somebody please knock that…thing out?"

Shukaku was more than happy to do that, and threw a ball of sand into Soukou's head.

"Thank you. Now who's this little cutie?" Nekomata asked, looking towards Trixi. "And why is she missing an ear?"

"This is Trixi, my cat, but you probably noticed that, she must have snuck aboard the gummi ship and fallen asleep or something, she does that sometimes" Sora said. "About the ear…well, we don't know, she's had it for as long as I've known her".

"Who cares? It's not like that cat can be of any use against Kyuubi" Raijuu said.

"Should I knock him out too?" Shukaku asked.

"Hey hey, relax. I'll be quiet" Raijuu said, raising his hands in defence. "It's a cute cat".

"Thank you" Nekomata said, and started petting the cat, who started purring. "So… you two aren't even from the same world?"

"How did you know?" Sora asked, sure they had picked up Trixi as a stray in Spargus, but they never told anyone since normally it was illegal to take a living being from one world to another, it would mean "messing with the world order" as Donald put it.

"She told me of course" Nekomata said, like that was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You can talk to cats?" Riku asked.

"I _am_ a cat in case you hadn't noticed" Nekomata reminded him. "Trixi tells me she grew up in a town called Spargus, she had her ear bitten of by a large hungry lizard and had been living with you for the past two years on an island community called Destiny Islands, correct?"

Sora could only stare in surprise. "She told you all that in one purr?" he asked.

"Yes, human language is so slow" Nekomata said. "Though in return, a normal house cat's language isn't very detailed and most have very small vocabularies"

"I know some cat language. Meow means "Give me your pancakes now" and hiss means "Stop putting my bed on fire or I will scratch you"" Axel said proudly.

Everyone else just gazed at him.

"But if you can talk to cats, perhaps you could explain why Trixi thinks she's a dog?" Riku asked, pointing to the cat who had now started licking Sora in the face.

"You should just be happy you have a cat who's affectionate, quite a lot of them don't care about you past dinner time" Nekomata said. "Unlike dogs."

"That's it!" Raijuu suddenly yelled.

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" Nekomata asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry, but I got an idea, if we can't ask Orochi for help, why don't we go find Houkou?" the weasel demon asked.

Nekomata just kept glaring at him. "No" she said.

"Why not? You're friends right? He's the one who's stronger than you, and you're the only one who knows where he is, right?" Raijuu said.

"I know where he is but I won't tell you" Nekomata said. "I told you he's not feeling well, he needs to rest, if he receives another beating from Kyuubi he might not make it!"

"Meeeeow!" Trixi said.

"No Trix, I don't think you'll be much help against Kyuubi either" Nekomata sighed.

"If he had been a nine-tailed rat perhaps" Riku said.

"Who says we have to fight Kyuubi first anyway?" Etna asked. "We defeated Deym and nearly Laharl even, as long as he doesn't call for that fox I think we may actually stand a chance. Finish them of first, and THEN we can concentrate on Kyuubi".

"Sounds okay in theory but how are we going to find them alone?" Zexion asked. "Deym appears to be running his own agenda but the last time we met Laharl he summoned Kyuubi almost immediately, how are we going to stop that from happening?"

"By fighting at the one place Kyuubi would never go?" Isonade suggested.

"And where would that be?" Riku asked.

"Well duh! The ocean of course" the shark-boy replied. "Kyuubi is fire element, he hates water, if anything that's probably the reason he lost to that Deym-guy too. But I'm the god of water, there's no way some wannabe rock star is going to defeat me in my own element."

Everyone seemed to think over this for a moment.

"What do you think Demyx?" Kairi asked.

"I don't know, I haven't seen Isonade in action but if he's as good as he claims he is… it might work" Demyx admitted.

"Awesome! Then where is this soon to be washed up rock star?" Isonade asked.

"How should we know?" Riku asked.

"He's 100 meters north of the Overlord's Castle" Demyx said suddenly. "Or what USED to be the Overlord's castle".

Everyone else stared at him.

"Oh yeah…nobodies can sense where their heartless are, I forgot about that" Riku admitted.

"I didn't remember till just now, but I think it's correct" Demyx said.

"Better than nothing, lets go!" Sora said and jumped to his feet, forgetting he still had Trixi on his lap so she fell to the floor. Hissing. "Oops, sorry Trix"

* * *

With help from the bijuu demons (Nekomata and Soukou in particular, since they could fly) it didn't take the party long to reach their destination, a crater near what the demons called the Stellar Graveyard. They landed behind a large rock, probably a meteor, out of sight of curious by-passers (or heartless).

"Careful guys. Deym is probably expecting an attack, so we must be ready for anything" Kairi said quietly. "Also, how exactly do you plan to get him to an ocean?"

"Leave that to me" Samehada said. "I may be small, but I'm still a demon you know".

"Okay everyone, get ready" Sora said.

Everyone suddenly ran out from behind the rock at the same time, and there they found Deym…apparently sunbathing.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" everyone (including Deym) yelled. Even Ienzo pointed at the stronger heartless in shock, but probably more to imitate the others.

"Well choose to believe I asked first, why are you out here on a cloudy day, wearing a black coat on a sun-bed?" Riku asked.

"Heartless don't like being out in the sun, too hot. But why are YOU here? Can't a heartless have some peace around here?" Deym asked.

Riku and Sora gazed at each other. "No" they said in unison.

"Never mind then" Deym said, as a couple of shadows ran in and removed the sunbed before disappearing to god knows where by portal. "I was going to talk to you anyway, I have a SERIOUS matter do discuss."

"Is this the guy you've been having problems with?" Isonade asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey, don't forget he did beat Kyuubi, so don't underestimate him" Nekomata whispered.

"Of course he did, he's a fire-type against a water-type. Water-types always wins. Now that I think about it I think Raijuu would be good against Deym, or if there was a grass-type Bijuu" Samehada said.

The rest of the party stared at the fish-demons.

"What? Don't you guys play Pokèmon?" Samehada asked. "It teaches you a lot of important stuff…. Like did you know grass-type creatures are extra vulnerable against flying ones? I certainly didn't".

"Don't interrupt me! I had something important to say!" Deym yelled. "I was planning to leave things nice and professional between us…"

"What the heck is NICE about turning our friends into heartless you moron?" Riku yelled.

"…But then" Deym continued, completely ignoring Riku's comment. "You just had to go on and HURT MY BABY!" He summoned his guitar in his hand; sparks still flew from cracks it had received when he fell of Gordon's ship earlier. "Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to fix this? I had to spend HOURS looking for a good repairman, but he was so extremely expensive! So I turned him into a heartless, but he only became a shadow…and how is a SHADOW supposed to fix my guitar huh? They're USELESS! The whole lot of them!"

Ienzo growled at him.

"Oh come on, you fell for the oldest trap in the book, box on a stick with ice cream underneath, and don't think I didn't see you!" Deym said. "Okay so I didn't, my vassals did, but the point is: YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!"

But before he got time to attack, Isonade ran up between Deym and the others.

"Just one moment music-boy, care for a little brawl first?" the water-bijuu asked. "You guys should probably get up on one of these meteors, or you will get wet" he whispered to the others.

"Fine, I don't care who goes first" Deym said and pulled out a new, completely unscratched guitar, the others could just wonder why he needed his other one fixed.

Once again, he started playing his music, summoning the giant water dragon.

"So THAT'S your game eyh? Shall we go for it Samehada?" Isonade said.

"You show him whose boss, boss!" Samehada said.

Suddenly the two were surrounded by what looked like a massive whirlpool, but it didn't stay long, and as soon as it vanished, Isonade had turned into a giant shark, with what appeared to be dragon wings for fins and standing up on two legs, it had no arms however, unless you count the wings/fins.

Samehada….Samehada looked just like he always had.

"Let's take a swim" Isonade said, smirking, before he jumped right into the giant dragon… and started swimming inside it.

The dragon, quite obviously annoyed at having the shark demon swimming inside it tried to attack, but since they were in fact INSIDE it, that proved just about fruitless.

"So you wanna fight water with water?" Deym asked. "Well two can play that game, don't miss this show you will be amazed."

* * *

**Usagi: It's the return of the cliffhangers! Have you missed them?**

**Sora: who misses a cliffhanger?**

**Zakura: Usagi does.**

**Riku: not too surprising, she loves torturing us so what says she doesn't enjoy torturing her fans too by leaving them with such open endings all the time? I wonder how many loose ends she's going to leave at the end of DoH…**

**Usagi: wouldn't you love to know? (Stares at Sora)**

**Sora: …why are you looking at me?**

**Usagi: You do not want to know. **

**Sora: I hate you so much.**

**Usagi: Aw…. Even when I turn you into cute little critters like this? (Holds up Ienzo)**

**Sora: GET THAT BLOODY THING AWAY FROM ME!**

**Ienzo: You don't like me? I'm technically your brother in law.**

**Sora: Kairi and I aren't married and even if we were, you're a shadow, I don't like shadows.**

**Ienzo: aw…**

**Usagi: don't be mean to him Sora! Please review people! **


	10. Water with Water 2

**Usagi: it's official. I fail at chapter titles.**

**Zakura: you fail at a lot of things, shall I list them?**

**Usagi: do that and you'll find yourself locked in your hutch for the next 3 months. **

**Zakura: I'll shut up.**

**Usagi: thank you. Took me a while longer to finish this than I would want… I blame the battle scene… but at least I got a sudden strike of inspiration in the middle, and for once it was for DoH and not for its sequel…**

**Zakura: or the sequel's sequel.**

**Usagi: there isn't any! Not yet anyway. **

**Zakura: time will tell…**

**Usagi: but enough talk of sequels (and no, I won't tell you what its about regardless how many cookies or bunnies you offer me… if you're desperate there MIGHT be some hints on Deviantart… in the form of OCs mostly…) here's the thrilling conclusion to the battle of Deym VS Isonade**

**Zakura: …which fails**

**Usagi: hutch!**

* * *

**Chapter 10**  
**Water with Water 2**

* * *

For anyone watching the scene from a distance who didn't know what was going on might have thought the battle looked funny.

A large dragon made from water, trying to catch a dragon-shark and a small fish swimming inside.

And boy did it look funny.

"Now this is just ridiculous" Deym said, and stopped playing, the moment he did the water-dragon fell apart, but Samehada was ready for it, he sucked up all the water before both he and Isonade landed on the ground in front of the heartless, Samehada looked like a giant ball.

"Was that all you have? I'm not even sweating" Isonade said.

"Sure? Cause you're awfully wet" Deym said.

"…I've been swimming you idiot" Isonade said.

"Well you've got nothing more to swim in now, so you're out of your element" Deym commented.

"We'll see about that, won't we Sammy?" the shark said, looking to the little fish who looked about ready to burst.

The fish nodded, and spit the water back out, only he appeared to spit out even more water than he had originally swallowed, the party quickly ran up to higher grounds as the large crater the heartless and the demons were in got completely filled up with water.

"Aw, now we can't see anything" Axel complained. "Demyx, can you tell what's going on?"

"I'd rather not" Demyx said.

"You're a chicken, got it memorized?" Axel said.

In the crater, neither of the fighters appeared to have any problems breathing, probably because Deym was a heartless and Isonade and Samehada were fish anyway.

"Too wet for you heartless?" Isonade asked.

"Nah, this is just fine" Deym said. "Only the water is a bit too calm. Let me just Rock you like a hurricane!" he yelled and played another tune on his guitar, the water started flowing faster and the currents threw Samehada into the edge of the crater and the fish got stuck in the mud, the shark demon himself seemed not to care much however.

"Is that all you've got?" Isonade asked, and with a single wag of the fins and tail he sent the currents back, now it was Deym's turn to be washed into the opposite edge of the crater.

Samehada managed to free himself from the muddy sides and swam to the surface.

"How's it going down there?" Sora asked when he saw the fish coming out of the water.

"He's a strong one, but I think Isonade-sama is going to win this thing" Samehada said.

"That's great! No one can defeat Isonade when he's in his true element" Nekomata said.

"I better get back down and help out" Samehada said and swam back down into the water.

"How exactly is he helping?" Riku asked. "He's like half a metre long, and by the looks of the mud on him; he got smashed into a wall."

"Samehada has the ability to store energy" Kaku explained. "He sucks up Sanbi's energy when he doesn't need it, and then sends it back later. As long as he's got Samehada Sanbi has more than twice the amount of stamina as he would normally have."

As Samehada swam back downwards to rejoin his boss, Deym was still struggling to free himself from the mud as Isonade was slowly making his way towards him, humming the Jaws-theme as he was swimming.

"Now this was a disappointment, after what I heard from the keybladers I thought I would actually get a challenge" Isonade said.

Samehada smirked, Nekomata was right; no one was a match for his boss in the water. This heartless didn't stand a chance.

Deym still had one foot stuck in the mud, and glared back at the shark, but there was something else there too. A smirk? No way. Samehada shook his head. _Isonade-sama is going to finish him of, he can't smile now, unless he's suicidal or something_ he thought.

In one fast movement, Isonade flipped all three of his tails and swam quickly towards Deym with his mouth open, but Deym was ready. Just before the shark hit him, he pulled his foot out of the mud and jumped underneath him, and from Samehada's point of view, he appeared to hit Isonade under the belly, but then he smelt blood.

"Wha? BOSS!" the tiny fish yelled, and quickly swam towards the demon shark, just as the water started turning red.

Deym simply kicked the smaller fish out of the way, so he landed face first into the mud, then the water seemed start flowing away, probably since neither Samehada or Isonade were using any power to keep it there, it got sucked up in the earth.

"Aw man. Not good" Demyx said as the water was sinking.

"What just happened?" Kairi asked.

But Demyx didn't have to answer, because just then the water got shallow enough for the party to see Deym and Isonade (and Samehada's tail, just before he popped back out of the mud), but something was clearly different with the shark.

Isonade was still lying on the side, but his skin had turned very dark blue, almost black. As he slowly got up the party also spotted a pair of vicious yellow eyes.

"Not again" Sora said.

"You bastard" said Riku.

"Truth to be said I didn't start the fire" Deym said, exactly where the fire-bit came in he never go time to explain as Sora and Riku charged at him, keyblades drawn.

Deym however summoned a pair of water clones who swiftly dodged the keybladers' attacks.

"You wanna be next brats?" he asked.

Without warning, suddenly hundreds of heartless materialized around the crater, surrounding both Deym and the party. Apparently everything from shadows to behemoths.

"Hey, that's cheating" Axel said.

"I don't think he's doing it Ax" Demyx said nervously, and looking at his heartless' expression he appeared to be right.

Deym glared at the other heartless who even appeared to be glaring back.

"What does he want NOW?" he asked. If the heartless replied or not, the keybladers couldn't tell, but Deym kept talking to the shadows all the same. "Okay fine! Tell him I'm coming, but this better be important!"

Then Deym, Isonade and all the heartless dissolved into dark portals, leaving the party looking rather perplexed.

"What just happened?" Sora asked.

"Seems to me the heartless came to deliver a message…from… someone" Demyx said.

"Well gee Sherlock, who?" Riku asked.

"I don't know! I'm not mind reader!" Demyx said.

Everyone else stared at him.

"What? I'm not! Not everyone's heartless is as dim witted as Sora's shadow" the beaver said.

"Ouch" Sora said. "But you do have a point there."

"Where did he go? Where's the boss? Where did he take him?" Samehada said.

"Oh you poor thing" Kairi said and picked the fish up. "I know just how it feels to loose a friend like that."

"Eyw, you're touching a fish" Nekomata said.

"You eat raw goldfish, you're not the one to talk" Kaku commented.

"As for Samehada's original question, I'd like to know that myself" Riku said.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a dark cave at an undisclosed location, a cloak-wearing figure appeared to be watching something when a dark portal appeared behind him, Deym jumped out if it.

"'Sup old man?" he asked casually.

The figure in cloak turned around, Deym couldn't see his face, other than a pair of yellow eyes that glared at him. "I think you know all to well "what's up" as you put it" he said. "Or did you already forget about our little agreement?"

"Wasn't there something about; I won't meddle in your plans and you won't meddle in mine? Which by the way you kind of just did" Deym said accusingly. "I had those kids just where I wanted them before your little lackeys butted in".

The stranger snapped his fingers, and suddenly a massive monstrous heartless appeared behind him and grabbed Deym by the neck, holding him up.

"I said you could do whatever you liked to the demons, or this would for that matter, but the keybladers are mine" he said. "I need them for my plan, alive".

"But doesn't your plan also involve them having to turn into heartless first?" Deym asked, he was starting to sound rather hoarse because the heartless was chocking him. "So frankly you should be thanking me."

"Don't play dumb boy" the stranger warned him. "Turn the kids into heartless now and my plan would be even further away from completion, as I'd have to wait until the two halves reunite again, otherwise it's useless!"

"Nobodies…they're so overrated" Deym muttered.

"Yours might be" the stranger said, and his servant dropped Deym to the ground. "Tell you what; I'll let this one slide, as long as you tell me where the heart of the Netherworld is."

"T-the heart of the Netherworld?" Deym stuttered, more due to the fact that he'd just gotten strangled rather than out of fear.

"You know where it is, don't you?" the stranger asked. "Although I'm kind of curious as to why you haven't taken it already…"

"I have no idea where it is" Deym said stubbornly. "Besides, I like it here, lots of strong rivals to fight, my nobody hates it, what more can a heartless ask for?"

The cloaked man once again glared at him.

"Fine, I'll show you" Deym said. "But the overlord won't be happy about it, he might be a heartless now but he's even more stubborn than me, and Kyuubi's taken a liking to him too".

"Oh I'm sure Laharl and his little pet won't be a problem" the man said, and looked over his back. For the first time Deym noticed there was some kind of creature behind him, something big, and by the looks of it, sleeping. Despite the situation, he couldn't help but grin.

"This might be worth to watch after all" he said.

* * *

**Zakura: cliffhangers fail too**

**Usagi: you're in a fail-mood today aren't you?**

**Zakura: your ability to discovering what my mood is like fails.**

**Usagi: you fail. Oops I did it again. I introduced another character without telling who he is. Mwuhaha. Actually two, but one doesn't say anything.**

**Laharl: where am I in all this?**

**Usagi: … at a Smash Mouth concert.**

**Zakura: why is it always Smash Mouth?**

**Deym: BECAUSE! (Hits Zakura with his guitar)**

**Usagi: thank you! That's enough sugar for today. Please review. Then there will be cake. **

**Axel: THE CAKE IS A LIE! Got it memorized?**

**Usagi: you ate it didn't you?**

**Axel: …I just remembered…I have something in the oven, bye! (Runs of) **

**Usagi: IT BETTER BE A NEW CAKE!**

(Ps: No. I haven't played Portal.)


	11. An Old Enemy Returns

**Usagi: 2 updates within a week! Aren't I generous…and that despite the fact that I only got one review for the last chapter… what's up people? Don't you like me anymore? ):**

**Sora: I hope so.**

**Usagi: no one asked for your opinion. **

**Here comes a chapter filled with a bunch of what I like most about this fanfic: heartless, foreshadowing,**** random disembodied voices, and messing with Sora's head!**

**Sora: (Twitch)**

**Usagi: something wrong?**

**Sora: oh I don't know… what about: WHY DO YOU KEEP TORTURING ME?**

**Usagi: BECAUSE IT'S FUN!**

**Sora: oh… okay then.**

**Usagi: that's fine with you?**

**Sora: of course it is. That gives me a good reason to do this (takes out chainsaw)**

**Usagi: aw…you're going to chop some wood for me. Thanks, but summer's coming so I don't really need it.**

**Sora: (starts chainsaw)**

**Usagi: er…Sora…there's no wood in here.**

**Sora: (walks towards Usagi)**

**Usagi: … I got a cake in the oven (runs)**

**Sora: COME BACK HERE! (Follows)**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

**Return of an Old Enemy**

* * *

The sun was already about to set by the time the party returned to Nekomata's house, Samehada stubbornly hitched a hike with Demyx, who'd been whining all the way about the fish being too heavy.

By the time they got back, they were all too tired to make new plans.

"I've got a few extra beds if you need them, the couch is still free too" Nekomata said. "However with so many of you I don't think there are enough beds for everyone".

"No worries, we can sleep in the Highwind" Sora said. "Then Flonne and Etna can take the extra beds."

"How nice of you" Flonne said. "Sure there aren't enough beds for the prinnies too?"

"Who cares? But if any of you boys want to share my bed…" Nekomata suggested.

"I do!" Shukaku said.

"You sleep on the couch, good night" Nekomata said and went into her bedroom, locking the door.

"She's unbelievable" Shukaku said.

"Well I'm beat, see you tomorrow everyone" Sora said. "Maybe it'll be easier to come up with a plan once we've got a good night's sleep".

* * *

However Sora wasn't going to get a good night sleep. He was having nightmares.

He found himself on what looked like a broken version of the Netherworld, completely devoid of plants and demons, and vicious purple clouds covered the sky.

In the distance was a castle, it looked somewhat similar to Laharl's castle before it was destroyed.

_Come to me my servants._

"Who said that?" Sora asked, and tried to look around, but he saw none, that is until a dozen of heartless, most shadows and soldiers, materialized around him.

Prepared for trouble, Sora drew the Kingdom Key, but the heartless simply ignored him, and started walking towards the castle.

"That was strange" Sora muttered, ever since he became the keyblade master he'd gotten used to being attacked by heartless, nobodies and Riku every other minute, and he certainly couldn't remember any time they had just walked right past him…well perhaps other than the times he WAS a shadow.

Sora quickly cast a glance at his hand, it was normal alright, and with the keyblade still there he obviously wasn't a shadow.

_Come to me my servants._

_Again? This guy sounds like a broken record_ Sora thought; he figured this voice had to be what called the heartless towards the castle. "This has got to be the oddest dream I've ever had" he muttered

"You better hope you are dreaming" said another voice from behind him.

Sora turned around and saw… himself… only it didn't look just like himself, the version he was looking at had darker hair, yellow eyes and the antennas of a shadow-heartless.

"No!" Sora shouted and sat up, finding himself back in the gummi ship, but still with a heartless staring him in the face.

"…Get of my bed" he said and pushed Ienzo down, something moved in the bed next to him and Kairi looked up, looking tired.

"Is something wrong Sora?" she asked.

"No, I was just having a bad dream" Sora said. "Nothing to worry about."

Kairi looked at him with a concerned look, but turned around and quickly fell asleep again.

Sora sighed. Now that he was awake the dream just seemed absurd. But the disembodied voice… Sora wasn't even sure if he'd actually _heard _it or if it was just in his head, but it had felt almost real.

"Was that voice a dream too?" he said to himself.

_Not so sure about that_.

Sora looked up and stared at the shadow on the floor in confusion.

Ienzo was rubbing his head, but when he noticed Sora was staring at him he stared back with a just as perplexed look in his eyes.

_Can you hear what I'm saying? _He said, or not precisely said.

Normal heartless couldn't talk, having spent quite a while as a shadow Sora had learned that, but they were able to communicate with one another (and in Sora's case; Roxas) with something similar to telepathy. But there was the catch; shadows could not talk to regular people! The only heartless Sora had known to actually talk was Xehanort, Deym, Kyuubi and Laharl, and all four had kept their original forms, more or less.

"I must still be dreaming" he concluded.

_Either that or we're both going nuts_ Ienzo thought/said, whatever. _I don't know about you though but I suspect I've got a pretty good excuse to loose it. _

Sora wasn't sure if he should laugh at that or not, a shadow talking about loosing his mind was rather amusing, considering how intelligent most of them were, but Ienzo didn't sound at all as idiotic as Sora had felt a couple of years earlier.

"I'm just gonna go back to sleep now" Sora said dropping back down on his pillow, desperately hoping the shadow wasn't going to talk again, his wish wasn't granted.

_Did you hear him too? _Ienzo asked.

Sora sighed, and got up again, this guy wasn't giving up.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

_That voice…I heard it in my sleep…calling the heartless towards it_ Ienzo said.

_So it's true, he's heard it too_ Sora thought, but he didn't say anything. Kairi's brother or not, shadows creeped him out.

_I've heard it before_ Ienzo said suddenly.

"You have? You mean... you know who it is?" Sora asked, for once he couldn't hide his curiosity.

For a few seconds Ienzo just stared into thin air, finally making him look more like a normal brain-dead heartless.

_I've heard it before_ he repeated. _But it was so long ago… and I wasn't the same._

"Back when you were human" Sora said, it wasn't a question, Ienzo just nodded.

Sora just sighed again. "Look, why don't we talk this over tomorrow or something? Right now I need some sleep" he said. "And don't tell Kairi about it will you?"

_Couldn't if I wanted to_ Ienzo admitted, before crawling into the basket next to Kairi's bed, where Zexion was currently sleeping.

Sora cast him one last glance, before falling back onto his pillow again.

The dream he had next was more like the ones he normally had, he had an ice-cream eating contest with Riku, but occasionally he still thought he heard the strange voice.

_Time is near, for our revenge. _

* * *

"Come on, wake up you lazy bum!"

Sora opened his eyes and saw Kairi standing by his bed, looking rather annoyed.

"Just five more minutes" he said, pulling the bed sheets over his head.

"You said that half an hour ago" Kairi said and pulled the sheet away from his face. "Everyone else have been up for hours already, and besides Zexion wanted to talk to you."  
That got Sora's attention. "Did he say why?" he asked.

"No, he said it was private" Kairi said. "You'd think he'd tell his own sister…"

"You're pretty new to this sibling-thing aren't you? I'm coming in a minute, would you mind going out? I'm not dressed" Sora said.

Kairi gazed at him, and laughed. "Sora, I've seen you in your underwear before, why does it matter?" she said, winking. "Besides, I'm your girlfriend; I'm allowed to see you naked."

"Well I can still try" Sora said with a smirk.

* * *

When Sora came out of the gummi ship the sun was already standing high up in the sky, although this didn't make the Netherworld look much more pleasant, with some kind of monster crawling everywhere, even a few of the tree trunks were alive.

"Erhem" said a voice close to the ship. Sora looked around and saw Zexion there; Ienzo was standing next to him.

"You wanted to see me?" Sora asked.

"Let's go someplace private" Zexion said, and started walking to the other side of the gummi ship. As soon as they had gotten out of sight (and hearing range) of the others, Zexion sat down again. "So" Zexion started. "I hear you've been having some odd dream."

"Just one" Sora said and glared over at Ienzo.

_You said don't tell Kairi, you didn't mention him _the shadow said innocently.

"Don't blame him; you know how shadows are right?" Zexion said.

"Yes, but I'm still getting a strange feeling he likes to get on my nerves" Sora said.

"Still… I've done a bit of thinking and I think I know why you're hearing this" Zexion said. "Someone is calling the heartless towards them, you're probably hearing it because you were turned into a heartless twice, I guess some of that lingers on, that might be why you're able to hear Ienzo too."

"But I've never been able to talk to another heartless before" Sora said.

_Very few heartless bothers to even try to talk to an opponent during a fight_ Ienzo said.

"Do you know who's calling the heartless towards them?" Sora asked.

Zexion snorted. "I do, and to be honest I'm surprised Ienzo managed to forget, since he was the reason we became like this in the first place" he said. "Though I can't say I'm blameless, I listened to him, I may have been a child genius, but I was naïve, and because of that he managed to push us all into the darkness, me, Elaeus, Even, Dilan, Braig."

_Xehanort_ Ienzo said, even without using his voice Sora noticed the bitterness in that one word.

Of course, the leader of the heartless, the one who had tricked both Maleficent, Sora and Riku in the past. He'd stolen the name of his former master Ansem, kidnapped Kairi and the other princesses of heart and tried to take over Riku's body.

"I thought we'd gotten rid of that guy" Sora said.

"I hoped so too, but remember what Larxene said? You can't kill a nobody **or** a heartless without killing both at the same time, and since Xemnas was killed a few hours after Xehanort, he must have had time to be reborn first" Zexion said. "Who knows what he's planning."

"We should warn the others" Sora said. "Just, don't let the others know I heard it too, I don't want to upset Kairi."

"We won't" Zexion said.

* * *

"If its not one there's the other. I guess its only fair that a few years after we defeated the nobody, the heartless would return" Riku said, after Zexion had told them they thought Xehanort might be back, he'd left out Sora's story however, making it seem like only Ienzo had heard the call.

"But we didn't destroy Xemnas, he could still be out there somewhere" Mickey said. "I don't want to think about what could happen if those two met."

"Or if Xehanort teamed up with Deym" Axel said, but Demyx shook his head.

"I don't think he would want to work under Xehanort" the beaver said.

"I don't think Xehanort would want a partner either. He just likes to give orders" Riku said.

"Does Ienzo know where he's hiding?" Kairi asked.

Zexion merely looked at his heartless, when Ienzo's antennas suddenly perched.

_He's near!_ He hissed.

* * *

And Xehanort was indeed near. In fact three heartless were watching the party from afar.

"You've just been busted" Deym whistled.

"It doesn't matter. They can't stop me now anyway" Xehanort said, seemingly pleased with himself. "But this is the first time I've seen any of my co-workers since becoming a heartless, Ienzo's heartless appears brighter than I would have thought."

"Bright? He's a freaking shadow!" Deym said. "Even among heartless they're known as the biggest morons ever."

"Funny, by the short time I've know you I thought that was you" a sinister voice said from behind them. The third heartless didn't look like one heartless at all, but rather eight enormous snakes, sticking out of a cave nearby. "If annoyance was strength, maybe you could have been a worthy opponent."

"Patience. I will find you a worthy opponent" Xehanort said. "And you could even thank Deym here for giving me the idea. You lost against Kyuubi before, but you have much more darkness in your heart, thus as a heartless you could be even stronger."

The snake smirked evilly with all of its eight heads. "Kyuubi. That darn fox will regret ever opposing the great Yamata no Orochi" he said. "A mistake that's going to cost him a lot more than just his own kingdom. The whole Netherworld will pay!"

* * *

**Usagi: someone's in trouble.**

**Sora: someone is you. Why do I get the feeling you added shadow-Ienzo as another way to bother me?**

**Usagi: what gives you that idea?**

**Ienzo: (pokes Sora) bother bother bother bother bother bother bother bother**

**Sora: just a hunch…**

**Usagi: you say the darndest things. **

**I'm feeling a bit generous after this chapter, you all know I like to add unsolved mysteries in the fic now and then but the mystery behind the last chapter's mysterious stranger was revealed rather quickly… in fact it should have been possible to guess his identity already in the last chapter. The Seeker of Darkness has returned! Now using his real name instead of Ansem…that name got old. I can understand why DiZ changed his name, though I'll always know him as the real Ansem.**

**Xehanort is in my opinion the real villain of Kingdom Hearts, after all he did start it all, even though he only appeared near the end of the first Kingdom Hearts, he was the final boss, Maleficent was just a pawn after all. **

**Orochi has been revealed too and Souko can just throw all thoughts of getting him on their side out of the window.**

**So who's going to win the rematch of Kyuubi no Youko VS Yamata no Orochi?  
We'll probably get the answer in just a couple more chapters. **

**In the meantime. REVIEW! Xehanort demands it.**

**Xehanort: actually I couldn't care le...**

**Zakura: DEMAND!**

**Xehanort: …review. **


	12. Dog of Illusions

**Usagi: So, after a surprising new chapter of Heart Wars, here comes the next instalment of DoH too. Ain't I spoiling you guys?**

**Sora: I prefer Heart Wars. At least there I am a badass sith!**

**Usagi: (gazes at Sora)**

**Sora: what?**

**Usagi: Sora…you're being told of by a bunny.**

**Sora: he's a violent vicious bunny! Like Zakura!**

**Usagi: oh…in that case you've forgiven.**

**Max: :3**

**Zakura: don't mess with bunnies.**

**Usagi: the title of this chapter turned out a bit ironic…I thought of naming it God of illusion but since said "God" is a dog I changed it to that… only later noticing dog is god backwards… words can be weird sometimes…**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**The Dog of Illusion**

* * *

"I think it's clear what we need to do, we've got to find the rest of the bijuu!" Souko said.

Nekomata sighed. "I still don't think Orochi will help us, but if this Xehanort guy is as bad as you say he is ("He's worse" Riku said) Houko should be warned."

"He's your friend isn't he? I heard Kaku mention it" Kairi said. Nekomata nodded.

"Houko's helped me out of quite a few tight spots. He's a five-tailed dog, but I guess it's easy to see we're not your typical cat and dog" she said. "He went into hiding after Kyuubi beat us, no one knows where he is…except me."

"If the heartless finds him now he'll be an easy target! We've got to warn him, I'd hate to see Neko go trhough the same thing I did" Shukaku said. Everyone else suddenly turned to look at him. "Ops…said too much."

"Aw come on, everyone knows you and Kyuubi were childhood friends" Kaku said. "Even if you often fought like…well cat and dog"

"That's no surprise" Sora said.

"He wasn't always this mean you know" Shukaku muttered. "He can actually be quite cool once you get to know him…and he's not a heartless."

"I know your pain" Samehada sighed. "But at least you can MOVE without your friends."

"Fine, first we'll go get Houko, then maybe we can go see if Orochi has any interest in kicking some heartless butt" Nekomata said, final one directed at Souko and Raijuu, who grinned. "Don't get your hopes up."  
"Well in that case let's hurry up!" Raijuu said and swiftly switched to his weasel-form.

"Hey hold on a second! We can't keep on with you guys in your monster forms! We only have two legs" Etna complained.

"Oh…sorry, I forgot about that" Raijuu said embarrassed.

"That can be fixed" Shukaku said, as he transformed into a giant tanuki. "Hop aboard girls" he added to Kairi, Etna and Flonne.

"Like I'm gonna let them ride with you perv-boy" Nekomata said, and the giant cat knocked him out of the way. "Step right up, Kairi, you can come too kitty-boy".

"Oh joy" Zexion sighed, but he let Kairi help both him and Ienzo get up on the giant cat's back.

Flonne and Etna ran over to Raijuu, but as they climbed up they both got shocked.

"Sorry about that, it won't happen again I swear" the weasel said.

"Oh its okay" Flonne said.

"If I hadn't had to ride him he'd be so dead" Etna muttered.

Sora and Riku walked over to Shukaku. "Looks like you got dumped again" Riku said smirking.

"Oh shut up before you have to walk" Shukaku muttered, while the boys climbed up on his back, swiftly followed by Axel. "Hey Souko! Aren't you going to help?"

The four-tail gazed at the rest of them. "Sure none of you others can't take the rest? What about Kaku?"

"I'm too small" Kaku said, already in badger form, sure enough the only ones who had been able to fit on his back was Demyx and Samehada.

"Okay fine" Souko sighed, before transforming into his demon form. Which turned out to be some strange lizard with the head, wings and back feet of a rooster. "Stop staring" the demon warned.

"Garwsh, we weren't staring" Goofy said helpfully, but most of the others were indeed staring, Axel broke out in laughter and Shukaku just grinned.

"I had almost forgotten how stupid you actually looked" the tanuki said.

"Let's just get on with this" Souko hissed, before pretty much scooping up Donald, Mickey and Goofy, spread the large wings and took of.

"Everyone aboard? Then let's go" Nekomata said, she too spread her wings and flew just in front of Souko. "This way."

And so the bijuu demons set of, lead by Nekomata and Souko who flew up front.

Nekomata led them towards a large forested area; a few animal-like demons peered out of the trees but kept a distance to the bijuu.

"How far is it? We've passed this tree four times already" Kaku said.

"You may think so, but don't forget Houko is the god of illusions. You won't find his hideout unless you already know where to go" Nekomata said. "We'll be there soon."

Sure enough, soon they arrived at a clearing, and the biggest tree any of the travellers had ever seen. Nekomata landed and let her passengers of before slowly approaching the big tree.

"Is this the place?" Kairi asked. Nekomata merely nodded. "You should probably wait here, I'll go talk to him" the cat demon said.

She walked up to the tree and from a distance the party could barely see the figure of a large white beast sit up underneath it.

"Is that Houko?" Sora whispered.

"Looks like it, I haven't seen him in a while" Raijuu replied. "But he is a giant white five-tailed dog, so it's probably him.

Houko was indeed having a good nap, until suddenly four large demons and one badger, accompanied by several other small creatures suddenly barged into his resting place.

He quickly recognized the larger demons, Nekomata came up to him.

"Hi there doggy, how's it going?" she asked.

"Well I was having a good night's sleep until you woke me up" Houko said annoyed.

"It's the middle of day" Nekomata remarked.

"Whatever" Houko said and got up, flinching as a ray of pain shot trhough his bandaged leg. "Ouch…now what do you want? I assume you wouldn't bring the whole lot over if it was only a friendly visit" he asked. "And if you want to beat up Kyuubi again, I can't help you with that, with this leg I'm lucky if I can catch even an elephant."

"You're right, we have a serious reason to be here" Nekomata said. "The Netherworld is in danger".

"Gee, what gave that away? Our king, the second most aggressive demon in the Netherworld going nuts? Or are the squirrels plotting a take-over" the dog asked.

"Close…but it's not the squirrels that are plotting and its not just Kyuubi either" Nekomata said. "The heartless are getting more and more restless by the day, they've taken King Laharl and Isonade too! The last thing we need now is more bijuu falling to them, so we came to warn you".

"The overlord too? Man this is worse than I thought" Houko said. "Kyuubi loosing was bad enough, his opponent was water element. At this rate all demons would turn into heartless!"

"And that's not the worst" Sora said as the others came closer to the tree. "The Netherworld has a heart too, and if the heartless get to that we'll all be pretty screwed."

"You at least since you live here and all" Axel added.

"And where is this heart?" Houko asked.

"We have no idea" Sora said.

"Well then…how does it look like?" the dog asked.

"Don't know".

"And how do you expect to save something you don't know what is?"

"We're still thinking about that".

"Who are these people?" Houko asked Nekomata.

"Just some of the Overlord's associates. Flonne, Etna, Sora, Kairi, Riku, Axel, Demyx, Ienzo, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Trixi, and this little cute guy is Zexion" Nekomata said.

Zexion's eye twitched. "She did not just say that did she?"

_If you mean "this little cute guy is Zexion", then yes, she did say that_ Ienzo said helpfully.

Zexion stared at his heartless, Houko stared at him too.

"You have a heartless in your party?" he asked.

"Oh don't worry about him, he's nice" Kairi said.

"Most of the time" Sora said quietly.

"Etna-sama, ETNA-SAMA!" a squeaky voice behind them suddenly yelled.

One of the prinnies came running towards them as fast as he could.

"What's wrong with you? I thought I told you to keep an eye on the prince" Etna said.

"It's just… pant… just that dood" the prinny said. "He's at the caste…and this giant snake heartless appeared. Dood"

"Orochi!" Nekomata hissed.

"Well I'll be damned" Souko said.

"Okay okay, so he got into a fight, big deal" Etna said.

"I think this might be serious dood. Deym and some other guy were there as well, and they said it was about the fate of the Netherworld" the prinny said.

Everyone stared at him.

"Say… you don't suppose the heart of the Netherworld is somewhere like…very close to the castle or something?" Demyx asked.

"I guess there is a slight possibility" Riku said.

"Then what are we waiting for! Ow…" Houko said, and got up before dropping back down.

"You're not in any condition to go anywhere" Nekomata said.

"You may be right but I don't want to miss this" Houko said, before he transformed into a humanoid demon with his right arm bandaged, he then walked up to Shukaku. "Mind giving me a ride?"

"Aw…do I have to?" Shukaku whined.

"Yes you do, now let's go!" Nekomata said and stopped briefly to let Kairi, Ienzo and Zexion back up on her back, and within shortly they were on their way.

--

The Overlord's castle was far beyond repair.

Not only was it completely trashed but because some smartass (Laharl figured it might as well be his father who had a habit of doing silly things) decided to build it in the middle of a lava pit most of the building materials had fallen in and melted.

Yet, the now heartless Overlord still stood on top of the rubble, looking over the surrounding area.

"Any particular reason we're still here" Kyuubi said, he was lying quite close, obviously bored. "This place is a mess".

"Well I did ask you to clean it up" Laharl said.

"I'm the king of bijuu, not a maid" Kyuubi said.

Laharl sighed. "I should really find a few prinnies and turn them into heartless too" he said.

"Why? Can't we just take another castle? I hear Hoggmeisser's is a nice place" the demon fox said.

"Hoggmeisser turned into a heartless last year and we had to tear down his castle because it smelt bad" Laharl said. "Turns out the old pig had been hiding a whole lot of food, and with no one there to eat it, it was starting to rot."

"Oh that's uncool" Kyuubi said, but the conversation got interrupted by a sound in the distance. "What was that?"

"We've got company" Laharl snarled, and pulled out his sword.

* * *

**Usagi: is the Netherworld screwed? Or will our heroes find a way to save it in time? **

**I'M NOT TELLING YOU! YOU WILL NEVER KNOW! THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE ABOUT DRAGONBALL Z!**

**Zakura: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT DRAGONBALL Z!**

**Usagi: fine it won't… it will be about saving the Netherworld! Please review or I'll have the heartless steal the heart of YOUR world!**

**Zakura:…you do realize that would be our world too right?**

**Usagi: oh snap… well in that case…well… REVIEW ANYWAY! **


	13. The Clash of the Heartless

**Usagi: aaaand we're nearing the climax of the Netherworld arc peps! I really enjoyed writing this arc.**

**Zakura: must be why it lasted for over half the fanfic so far.**

**Laharl: Why should someone NOT love an arc I'm in?**

**Usagi: very good point Prince.**

**Laharl: …I am Overlord you know.**

**Usagi: okay Prince Overlord.**

**Laharl: hey!**

**Usagi: but also, in this chapter I came to think there is one cool character from Disgaea who's been left out so far…**

**(Prism Rangers show up.)**

**Usagi: …no, not you. **

**(Seraph Lamington shows up)**

**Usagi: DEFINITELY not you. I'm talking about Mid-Boss!**

**Mid-Boss: that's not my name!**

**Laharl: it is now!**

**Mid-Boss: aw…**

**Usagi: enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 13**

**The Clash of the Heartless**

* * *

Just a couple of kilometers away from the Overlord's castle, a massive eight-headed snake made his way through the mountain ranges, followed by two humans.

"This is boring. Can't we take a dark portal instead? What's wrong with taking the backstreets?" Deym said.

"Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to get such a large demon through a portal? Shut your mouse trap we're almost there" Xehanort said.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that!" said an unfamiliar voice with a French accent.

The two humanoid heartless looked past Orochi, all of his eight heads were staring with a puzzled expression by a humanoid demon who was holding a rose in his hand.

"And who might you be?" Xehanort asked.

"Moi? I am the Dark Adonis Vyers!" the demon said. "And I'm afraid if you want to get to the overlord's castle, you have to go through me first!"

"Who do you think you are? The final boss?" Orochi asked.

"Hardly, more like a mid-boss" said another head.

Vyers fell backwards in shock. "I am NOT a mid-boss! I am the Dark Adonis! Why does no one get my name right?" he said.

"Whatever, we don't have time for this" Orochi said and flicked Mid-Boss/Vyers away with one of his tail.

"Well that was strange and needless" Deym said.

* * *

Meanwhile Laharl and Kyuubi were still standing by the castle ruins waiting, when Mid-boss crash-landed on his face into the rubble next to them.

"You really need to work on your entrances, Mid-boss" the overlord said.

"Ugh, for the last time, it's the dark Adonis Vyers!" Mid-boss said, rubbing his nose. "And I wouldn't be too cocky if I were you, some reeeeally strong heartless are coming this way."

"Strong heartless huh?" Laharl said and smirked. "Let them come, I've been looking for some strong opponents anyway, maybe I'll even make them my vassals afterwards."

He then started laughing, Kyuubi and Mid-boss just stood by waiting for him to finish.

"You shouldn't underestimate these guys" Mid-Boss said once Laharl had stopped laughing. "Besides working too close with heartless could be dangerous."

"I AM a heartless you moron" Laharl commented.

"Oh right… but be careful all the same" Mid-Boss said. "I'd love to help you but I'm already injured enough as it is." He added before limping of.

"Who was that guy?" Kyuubi asked.

"No one of importance" Laharl said.

Just then the heartless of Orochi decided to make an entrance. He slithered across the mountains faster than anyone would expect a snake (or eight) of that size would move, and soon he was right in front of the lava pit, smirking at Laharl and Kyuubi.

"You!" Kyuubi said snarling.

"What are you smiling at? Are you that eager to get beaten up?" Laharl asked.

"Step aside boy, I have no interest in you, I just want to fight Kyuubi" Orochi said.

"What do you mean "no interest?" I'm the Overlord!" Laharl said, obviously offended. "I've fought earth worms bigger than you!"

A few other heartless started crawling out of the ruins and stood at their leader's side, glaring at the snake-demon as to empathize his point.

"I'm sure that's a very fascinating story how you work in your garden boy, but Yamata no Orochi is only here so he can have a rematch with his old enemy" said Xehanort, who just appeared next to Orochi along with Deym, who had a bucket full of popcorn in his hand. "So I'll just ask you nicely to sit this one out".

Laharl's vassals took a few steps back, but the overlord himself only raised an eyebrow.

"So you're the guy who's been trying to gain control of the heartless in this area huh?" he said. "Sorry to break it to you, but I'm not about to bow down to anyone."

"You've kept a strong will, even as a heartless, fascinating" Xehanort said. "Though it doesn't say that much, even this idiot here refuses to obey me most of the time" he added pointing to Deym. "It's a pity though; you could have made a great soldier under my command, who knows? Maybe even my second in command as I take over the worlds?"

"I'm not second in command to anyone!" Laharl growled, the air around him practically sparkled, his hair stood up and the cape flew to the sides shaped like giant demon wings. But before he got time to give Xehanort a piece of his mind, a familiar voice hit his ears.

"Laharl!"

The bijuu demons appeared on the scene, and Flonne jumped of Raijuu's back and ran over to the edge of the lava pit. "Thank the Seraph you're okay" she said.

Laharl just snorted, he didn't have time for love-crazy ex-angels right now, so instead he crossed the wall of lava surrounding him and Kyuubi (and also Mid-Boss who was standing just behind them, after having noticed there was no longer any bridge leading from the castle and one of his wings were injured so he couldn't leave) and landed in front of Xehanort.

"You are not taking this world" he threatened. "If you as much as move I will kill you".

"Do it now!" Riku shouted

"Uhm, shouldn't we do something?" Kairi asked.

"If we break in now we may have to fight ALL of them" Nekomata said.

Sure enough, Kyuubi was now standing in front of Orochi, Laharl had his sword pointed at Xehanort, Mid-Boss stood awkwardly back in the ruins, Deym sat on a rock watching the action while eating popcorn and then there was the party looking at this whole scene, adding a slight confused glance over at Deym and Mid-boss.

"Then…shouldn't someone help the guy standing by the ruins?" Kairi asked.

"Who? Oh look Flonne, its Mid-boss again" Etna said.

"Oh yeah, I didn't recognize him at first with all the dust on him, hi Mid-boss!" Flonne said waving. Mid-boss just waved back.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Laharl suddenly yelled, he jumped up in the air and slashed his sword through the air at such speed, the mere air pressure created could have been lethal, hadn't Xehanort jumped out of the way at just the right time.

At the same time, Kyuubi charged too, and bit on to one of Orochi's eight heads.

The remaining seven heads however bit on to various body parts on the fox, and pulled him of, before throwing him into a nearby mountain.

"Hah! Who's the bijuu king now?" the snake said.

"Get your stinking fangs of him!" Shukaku yelled, forgetting everything Nekomata had said about intervening, he shook of his passengers before charging at Orochi.

The first attack came in the form of a massive ball of sand, which the snake easily dodged, and then he grabbed the tanuki by the scruff of his neck and threw him into Kyuubi.

Laharl was having problems of his own, as Xehanort's guardian had shown up, and was now holding him by a death grip around the neck.

"Ready to give up, "King" Laharl?" Xehanort asked.

"N-never!" Laharl said.

"Shame" Xehanort said, his guardian strengthened his grip on Laharl's neck. "In that case I just have to kill you, sure there is a chance you'll get reborn if you by any chance have a nobody running around somewhere, but do know you may not be reborn the same way you are now. Maybe your second incarnation will be more obedient. Finish him of."

The guardian readied himself for a final blow, but suddenly an arrow made from light suddenly hit the arm he was holding Laharl with, making him drop the demon heartless to the ground. Xehanort, the guardian and Laharl looked in the direction the arrow had come, and noticed Flonne standing with a magical bow in her arms.

"Leave him alone" she said.

"Go play with someone your own size" Xehanort said and summoned a small group of soldier heartless who quickly surrounded Flonne.

Flonne tried to keep the heartless at bay but there were too many, luckily for her Etna and the prinny squad decided to join as well, and eventually annihilated all of the heartless.

Orochi, now seemingly tired of watching Kyuubi struggle to get Shukaku of his back, and Shukaku struggle to get free of Kyuubi's tails as he somehow got himself entangled, two of the snake's heads turned their attention towards the demons.

"Haven't you girls learned it's rude to interrupt other people's fights?" he asked mockingly.

"Save your attention for your own battle Yamata!" Kyuubi snarled. Lifting his tails he threw Shukaku into one of the heads before biting on to another.

"If you're bored I'll give you all something to do" Xehanort said and whistled. Several heartless of all forms appeared out of dark portals, surrounding the battle field looking for someone to pick a fight with. A small shadow even decided to bite Deym in the leg.

"Hey! Let go of me, I'm on your side…mostly anyway" Deym said and shook the shadow of.

"Okay fine, watching other people fight is boring anyway" Riku said as he summoned Road to Dawn, just as a wyvern heartless decided to charge at him, Riku stabbed it and went for a group of about five of dragon-like heartless nearby.

The others also picked out a random batch of heartless as Kyuubi and Shukaku kept fighting Orochi, and Laharl continued to fight Xehanort and his guardian plus a few soldier heartless, now somewhat assisted by Etna, Flonne and the prinny squad, who were used as missiles by both Laharl and Etna.

"You know I could take him on my own" Laharl said.

"Then why are you throwing my vassals at him?" Etna asked.

"They keep getting in the way" Laharl said, and tossed another prinny towards the guardian, who exploded on impact.

Kyuubi however wasn't so lucky. Shukaku had been knocked out and now even the nine tailed fox was struggling.

"What's the matter "Your majesty?" Not as feisty as you used to be are you? Or maybe my new form is too much for you" Orochi said mockingly.

Kyuubi merely growled, he looked about ready to collapse with his feet all scarred, but still kept himself standing right in front of the lava pit and the ruins of the Overlord's castle. And mid-boss.

"I feel more ignored than usual" Mid-boss muttered.

"Fine then. I'm getting tired, I'd rather this battle don't last another 100 years" Orochi said. "So why don't you just give up now?" Four heads grabbed on to each of Kyuubi's feet and tossed him onto the ruins, Mid-Boss finally decided his wings were just fine and flew of to safety just before the fox hit the ground, and next the floor cracked and he fell down into a hole.

"Whoa, I didn't know the castle had a basement that deep" Flonne said.

"No!" Laharl yelled. "Don't let him go down there!"

"W-why? What's down there?" Flonne asked.

Laharl didn't answer, he just pushed her out of the way and ran to follow Orochi, who moved his gigantic body over the lava pit and disappeared into the hole, quickly followed by the overlord.

The heartless suddenly stopped fighting as everyone turned around to see what happened to the two demons.

Shukaku even struggled to his feet.

"Shouldn't someone stop them?" he asked.

"I'm afraid it's too late for that" Xehanort said smirking.

"LAHARL!" Flonne yelled, she was about to fly over to the ruins when Etna and Sora grabbed her.

"Don't go, I think we better get out of here" Sora said.

Just as he said that, the ground started shaking and what was left of the castle fell down into the lava. Next thing a large black hole appeared in the sky.

"Wha-what is that thing?" Flonne asked.

"The end of the Netherworld" Riku said.

* * *

**Usagi: Uh oh…**

**Zakura: did you not just say the Netherworld was your favourite part of LiD?**

**Usagi: Yup**

**Zakura: …and now you break it?**

**Usagi: that's correct.**

**Sora: are you surprised? She turned me into a heartless and Zexion into a kid's pet, being that girl's favourite is NOT a good thing. Whether it's a person or a world.**

**Usagi: Shadow-boy is right. **

**Mid-Boss: why didn't I get to pwn anyone?**

**Usagi: since when did you ever pwn anyone?**

**Mid-Boss: well I did beat you first round around in Di…**

**Usagi: ENOUGH! I should probably explain some stuff for those of you who don't know this guy. **

**Mid-Boss/Vyers is a character from Disgaea (big shock there) and of the two introductions I've seen him have (that is Disgaea and Disgaea 2) he's always been given the nickname Mid-Boss for some awkward reason. Then somehow everyone ends up calling him that. **

**Is he more than just a "Mid-Boss" you ask? Well yes... but in LiD he plays no important part. **

**Vyers: hey!**

**Usagi: Hey, be at least happy I didn't write your name wrong last time.**

**Vyers: Oh... HURRAY!  
**

**Usagi: but to more important matters…what's going to happen to our heroes? Will they be able to escape the Netherworld in time or get trashed with it? **

**Laharl: where did I go?**

**Usagi: To the End of the World.**

**Zakura: wow… she actually answered.**

**Usagi: PLEASE REVIEW PEPS! Laharl demands it!**

**Laharl: if it gives me more appearances in this series…**

**Usagi: that could be arranged.**

**Laharl: ALRIGHT! Do review or I'll throw an exploding penguin at you! Cause yeah, prinnies explode when thrown.**

**Usagi: …and I did not just make that up, they actually do. **


	14. The End of the Netherworld

**Usagi: welcome back to another joy-filled cute chapter of Darkness of the Heart!**

**Zakura: which taking the previous chapter into count is obviously neither joy-filled nor cute.**

**Usagi: why are you so pessimistic?**

**Zakura: cuz you ruined the Netherworld.**

**Usagi: oh…yeah… How will our heroes escape THAT? Read and see:**

* * *

**Chapter 14**

**The End of the Netherworld**

* * *

"We have go get out of here! Now!" Mickey said, knocking out a few heartless before he pulled out a remote control of some sort and pushed a button. The Highwind quickly arrived over the horizon.

"But…what about Laharl?" Flonne asked. "And the Netherworld's…"

"He'll manage, about the Netherworld…well its too late for that" Sora said. Just as he said that the ground around the pit was starting to crack.

"Everyone, get in!" Kairi yelled.

The remaining bijuu demons changed to their humanoid forms as everyone ran into the ship, Raijuu ran over to help Shukaku get in.

Once everyone had come in Donald took the wheel and started the engines, just as the ground was swept away under them.

"Hurry up!" Demyx yelled as he realised the ship wasn't moving very fast.

"I'm trying! But the black hole is pulling us in" Donald said.

"Should we throw Souko out?" Shukaku suggested.

"I heard that!" Souko complained.

Riku looked back towards the spiralling black hole behind them, trees and rocks flew into it and there was hardly anything left of the ground underneath.

"We may not have any other choice" he said. "We have to go trhough it".

"What?" everyone else in the gummi ship yelled.

"Are you even aware of where that thing leads?" Donald asked.

"It could lead anywhere, most likely we would end up at the End of the World, nasty place I'm sure, but if you don't have a super-rocket hidden somewhere that's where we'll end up anyway" Riku said. "Besides, if we keep spending our fuel trying to escape that thing we'll eventually run out and be trapped there."

"Riku has a point for once" Sora said.  
"What do you mean "for once?" Riku complained, Sora ignored him.

"We've both been trhough that portal once before, it isn't pretty but it might be our only way out" Sora continued. "When we get out on the other side, it shouldn't be too difficult getting back to our world, as long as we don't waste our fuel".

Mickey sighed.

"I hate to say it but it's our only chance" he said. "Turn the ship around Donald."

The duck still looked worried, but turned the gummi ship around and just as the back was no longer pointing towards it, the black hole's gravity took effect and pulled the ship towards it, no engine power was needed, other than to steer away from rocks and pieces that got in the way.

"Hang on!" Sora yelled.

It was a bumpy ride indeed, once into the portal the gummi ship got thrown around half of the time, and the rest of it Donald had to spend dodging rocks and what else that came of the Netherworld.

Finally they reached the end of the portal, the gummi ship calmed down enough for Donald to regain control.

"That was fun, let us never do that again" Etna said.

"I-is it over?" Flonne asked, as she tried to get back up. There weren't enough seats for everyone in the gummi ship, so a lot of the demons had to sit on the floor.

Sora took a peek out of the window. "I'm afraid so" he said.

Everyone eventually got up (and Shukaku threw up on the floor) to examine their surrounding.

The Highwind was driving slowly to preserve fuel; all they could really see was an eerie purple sky.

Bellow them was a broken up landscape, covered in broken trees and dead plants. Heartless peeked out everywhere.

"What is that place?" Flonne said.

"Ehm, Flonne? I think that might be the Netherworld" Etna said. "Look, there's the castle…or was".

Sure they could see the lava pit, but only a few rocks were sticking up from it to reveal the castle was even once there. The lava looked different too, it was all black.

"That looks kind of like the dark eco back in Haven City" Axel said.

"I think you're right" Mickey said. "I guess that substance exists on more than one world, either that or it has a connection to the dark realm, and surfaces when a world is consumed by darkness.

"Nice, can we go now?" Nekomata asked.

"I'm trying" Donald said, as a light started flashing on the dashboard. "But it appears we're too heavy. See that's why I kept telling you not to pick up so many passengers".

"Well we can't just leave the demons here… just get the gummi ship down, maybe we can find another solution" Kairi said.

Donald drove the gummi ship down to the ground and allowed everyone to get out; Flonne immediately started examining the area.

"Hey wait…where's Gordon and Jennifer?" Flonne suddenly asked.

Etna looked around. "Hey yeah… we almost forgot about them, didn't we leave them around here somewhere?" she asked.

"We better look for them, and check if they are okay or if they got away" Kairi said.

--

"Gordon! Miss Jennifer! Thursday! Where are you? Oh please be okay" Flonne shouted, as they walked around the previously-a-lava-pit-now-filled-with-dark-gooey-eco-stuff.

"Strange, we should have seen their ship by now" Etna said. "Wasn't it around here?"

"I think it was over there" Sora said.

"No, it was over here I can smell it… uh oh" Zexion said.

"What's wrong?" Kairi asked, but her fuzzy big brother didn't have to reply, before a pile of rocks suddenly started moving, and a small dark red fox came out of it, glaring at the group.

"Kyu, I forgot how cute your animal-form was!" Nekomata said.

"Shut up!" the tiny Kyuubi yelled. "Where'd that blasted snake go? I'll kill him! And then if he returns I'll shop of all his head and kill him again, and make origami out of his intestines!"

"How do you plan on doing that when you don't have fingers?" Axel asked.

"I have a human form too you know… Now WHERE is HE?" the fox said again, and tried to charge out of the pile of rocks, but then he tripped over one of his own tails, his feet were still scarred, making it hard to walk.

"Oh poor little guy, you're injured, you can't fight now" Kairi said.

"Did she just use the words "Poor little guy" about a heartless? A demon heartless? The demon heartless of the strongest fox demon ever?" Demyx asked.

"You've got to admit he's cute" Nekomata said.

"I told you never to use the C-word about me again Nekomata" Kyuubi muttered, as he was being "involuntarily" cuddled by Kairi, though the fact that he didn't turn around and bite seemed to hint he wasn't as annoyed with it as he appeared to be.

"Uhm, excuse me mr Kyuubi sir, you wouldn't happen to have seen two humans and a robot here somewhere have you?" Flonne asked.

"Maybe...but what do I get for telling you?" Kyuubi asked.

"We could help you get your heart back" Kairi said, winking. "If we do, you'll be back to full strength again and may even be strong enough to beat that giant snake".

"What? We can't bring a demon heartless on the gummi ship!" Riku said.

"Ienzo's a heartless and I haven't heard you complain about him coming with us" Kairi said shrugging.

"Ienzo is just a shadow, and besides we've got his nobody with him, that should count for something" Riku said. "But Kyuubi is a demon fox, one of the strongest there is".

"THE strongest there is" Kyuubi added.

"That's not really reassuring..." Riku said.

"Aw please? I promise I won't eat anyone" Kyuubi said, trying his best to produce a puppy-eye-look.

"That would be way less disturbing if his eyes wasn't yellow…no offence Trix" Sora said.

"Tell you what, you'll lead us to our friends and then _maybe_ we'll let you ride with us" Riku said.

"_Or_ you'll just leave me behind or strike me down soon after you find them right?" Kyuubi asked.

Riku's glare just about revealed that was just what he planned on doing.

"But here's another question, you wanted to find this Vexen-fellow right?" Kyuubi said.

"How did you know?" Kairi asked.

"I spied on you from the bushes… Well my lakeys did" Kyuubi said.

"Don't powerful heartless do anything themselves?" Sora asked.

"Nah…why bother. But as I was saying, you need to find Vexen, but do you know where he is?" the fox asked.

"What? You do?" Riku asked suspiciously.

"Hello. My nobody always hangs round that dude for reasons I don't quite get. As long as they're together I can help you locate them" Kyuubi said.

Everyone looked at each other for a while, before everyone suddenly started staring at Riku.

"Why are everyone looking at me?" he asked.

"You're the one who usually comes up with the counterarguments in cases like this" Sora reminded him.

"Oh…well…I can't come up with any. Damn, fine you can come along, but if you try anything…" Riku said.

"You'll stick your keyblade right into my chest, I get it" Kyuubi said. "Now about those humans…follow me".

The demon fox led them to a clearing, where they could see the Defender of Earth's space ship lying on its side.

"Oh no!" Flonne said and started running towards the space ship but Kyuubi stopped her.

"They're not in there" he said. "I saw the space ship crash, just before you came out of the portal…"

The fox got interrupted by several beeps coming from a rock formation. Flonne ran towards it and dug out a rather beat up Thursday, the robot was beeping madly, his eyes (which were made up of 3 lights) span around like crazy and making odd sounds, it was hard to make out any words of it.

"Beep! Beep! Heartless. Krrrk. Dark. BEEP. Gordon. Jennifer. BEEP. Leave. Krrrk. Its comiiiiiing"

The robot silenced, and the lights went out, before one of them popped out of its socket.

"But…What happened? Thursday! Wake up!" Flonne yelled and started shaking the robot. "Where are Gordon and Jennifer?"

At the last questions she turned around and stared at Kyuubi, who was gazing at a cloud formation.

Kairi came and put her hand on the fallen angel's shoulder.

"He's not waking up" Etna said, keeping her distance. "And we won't find Gordon and Jennifer alive, do we?" Once again the last was directed at Kyuubi. Who simply nodded.

"You said I should lead you to the humans" he said. "It's not my fault they didn't make the trip".

Flonne broke out in tears, and as Kairi tried to comfort her Etna sent her prinnies to investigate the space ship.

"It appears to be in good shape dood" one said after the examination. "But the paint has been scraped of a few places, but it doesn't affect its flying."

"Good…then there's only one thing left to do" Etna said, she just stared at the prinnies, who immediately panicked, each pulled out a paint brush and a bucket of red paint out of their pouches (they had that in there since they could never know when Etna asked them to paint something) and ran over to paint the whole (yellow) space ship red.

"You can't just steal Gordon's ship!" Flonne protested.

"Why not? He won't need it anymore" Etna said shrugging. "And we need a ship to get us out of here; you know Highwind can't take all of us. Besides, I'm sure that if Gordon was still alive he'd beg us to take it. You don't think he'd let us stay here and become snacks for the heartless do you?"

"I guess…" Flonne said, before she started crying at Kairi's shoulder again.

"There there, it'll be okay" Kairi said.

"No it won't!" Flonne cried. "First we lost Laharl, then the Netherworld, and now even Gordon, Thursday and Jennifer are gone. Where are we going to go?"

"We'll find somewhere, relax!" Etna said, the prinnies returned to her side, every one of them sweating.

"We're done with the painting dood" one said panting.

Etna gazed at the now all red space ship, which the prinnies had also been "kind" enough to push back into position.

"Where are the Speed Stripes? And the large banner that says Etna the Beauty Queen?" she asked.

The prinnies all fainted.

* * *

**Usagi: and as usual we end our chapters at a lighter note.**

**Sora: what do you mean by usual? Usually you end with a hopeless cliffhanger… heck in the last chapter you left us on a dying planet!**

**Usagi: okay… then FOR ONCE we end our chapter on a lighter note, making fun of prinnies. Because making fun of prinnies is fun.**

**Prinny: Doooood! **

**Usagi: I've decided to give each bijuu 3 forms in this fanfic. One is their huge demon monster form (except Kaku who's rather small anyway), the other is a humanoid form, and the third is as Kyuubi is here, a smaller animal form.**

**Zakura: why? What is the purpose of being able to change into a tiny animal?**

**Usagi: Well its…compact, and makes it far easier to travel around in a small carrier.**

**Zakura: (stare)**

**Usagi: and it's cute! And besides I redesigned these demons so I can make them any form I want! Just how the heck do you expect a monster-size Kyuubi would fit into the gummi ship huh? **

**Zakura: …human form?**

**Usagi: Eat a banana! (Gives rabbit a banana)**

**Zakura: yummy…**

**Usagi: Well you know the drill. The little purple button that says "Submit Review". It's there for a reason, press it, and review! If you do Laharl will come to your house and sing for you!**

**Laharl: …I DON'T SING!**

**Usagi: okay okay…review, make me happy, and I'll upload the next chapter quicker. KTHANKSBYE! **


	15. Family Reunion

**Usagi: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE NAZI-WEREWOLF-CATBOY BEHIND THE CURTAIN!**

**Zakura: what curtain?**

**Usagi: this one (Throws a curtain over Zakura) So the Netherworld arc is over for now…**

**Etna: for now? You blew it to pieces!**

**Usagi: yeah and? We need a break from the action in one short chapter in order to give Kairi a bad time.**

**Kairi: hey…**

**Usagi: because she never did tell her mother where she was going.**

**Kairi: …**

**Sora: busted. **

**Usagi: also there might be time for Zexion to explain a few things…ENJOY!**

* * *

**Chapter 15**

**Family Reunion**

* * *

Since Gordon's ship had more room than the Highwind had, all the demons decided to use that, except Kyuubi who had to lead the keybladers towards his nobody. And Samehada.

"Why don't you want to go with your friends?" Kairi asked, raising an eyebrow at the fish that had crawled into the gummi ship.

"I want to know how to turn heartless back, so that I can help Isnoade-sama!" Samehada said. "Besides, if I go with you guys maybe I can meet him again too and save him!"

"Sounds noble enough, I don't see a problem with it" Sora said. "He's a fish after all, he doesn't take up that much space. No Trixi!" he suddenly said to the cat, who was eyeing Samehada, licking her lips.

--

Meanwhile our heroes were once again unaware of being watched, and for once it wasn't some random heartless' lackeys, but instead Orochi, Deym and Xehanort stood on a hilltop watching.

At least Orochi and Deym were watching, Xehanort was talking, though no one seemed to pay attention.

"Ah, the End of the World, such a glorious place it is" Xehanort said. "Now that I am a heartless I finally understand darkness rules everything. I once thought logic and reason was everything but there I proved myself wrong when I on my journeys came across a flat world rotating on the backs of four large elephants, that all stood on an even larger turtle swimming aimlessly trhough space".

That suddenly got the other heartless' attentions.

"Four elephants?" Deym asked.

"And a turtle?" Orochi said.

"I think the darkness must be eating away at your brain too" Deym said.

"You understand nothing" Xehanort said.

"Oh I understand alright, you can have fun with your turtle world cause this is where I'm leaving both…or all nine of you" Deym said.

"Really? Are you sure you don't want to participate in my big master plan to take over the universe?" Xehanort said.

"Yeah right, you're only after a guinea pig for your crazy experiments, screw you guys I'm going home" Deym said and started leaving.

Orochi and Xehanort gazed at him.

"And yes I am aware that wasn't a song quote" Deym said, before disappearing into a portal.

"What kind of experiments was he talking about?" Orochi asked.

"Oh you'll see" Xehanort said smirking. "Though…I'd rather test it out on someone more disposable first".

"What kind of creature do you need?" the snake asked. "Could you use some of those brats down there?"

"No, I need someone who won't betray me, but at the same time it needs to be a person capable of producing both a heartless and a nobody. Too bad animals don't often get nobodies... a monkey or an ape would be perfect" Xehanort said.

"Yeah right, if I ever see a monkey capable of creating a nobody I'll let you know" Orochi said, rolling his many eyes.

--

Meanwhile, the two space ships readied themselves to take of, they had decided to lead the demons to Traverse Town before moving on, as they were used to taking in off-worlders who'd lost their homes to the heartless.

Luckily getting out of the end of the world proved to be a far less bumpy ride than it was getting there, even though there were a lot more heartless blocking their way, but at least the Highwind was now running smoothly, and not getting tossed around everywhere.

"So where are we off to next?" Donald said, the moment they passed the border between the end of the world and the normal universe, the demons' ship passed them though slightly slower than the Highwind.

"Though I do think we should get to find Vexen as soon as possible, maybe we should go to Radiant Garden first" Mickey said.

"What? Why? This is urgent! We've got to help Zexion right?" Kairi said.

"Not as important as it is letting your mother know where you are, she's worried sick about you" Mickey said. "I'm sure Zexion wouldn't mind waiting a couple of hours, and then we'll leave soon after."

"You mean you'll leave" Kairi sighed. "She's just going to lock me up again."  
"Now now, we don't know that for sure" Mickey said. "After all last time was about you going to a demon world".

"She's gonna get locked up" Zexion said. "Mom's extremely over protective, when she was younger she wouldn't let her cross the street even if I was with her".

Kairi groaned, Mickey just rolled his eyes.

"We're going to Radiant Garden and that's final" he said. "Besides, Nanami would murder me if I waited any longer".

Everyone else gazed at him.

"…I said that out loud didn't I?"

Everyone nodded.

--

"What did you THINK you were doing? I worried SICK about you! You could have gotten killed! OR WORSE! What if those demons tried to take advantage of you or something?"

Despite Kairi's protests the gummi ship had landed on Radiant Garden, and her mother was so happy to see her again…or something.

"You could have died!" Nanami said.

"You said that already" Axel said, rubbing his ears. Having extra sensitive hearing wasn't an advantage in this situation. "In a different way but you still said it".

"You stay out of this" Nanami warned him. "What were you thinking?"

"I had to help my friends, mom!" Kairi said. "I couldn't just sit back while they were in trouble."

"You could have gotten hurt!" Nanami said.

"Oh boy, here she goes again" Zexion muttered to those who were capable of hearing, that was currently Sora, Riku, Axel, Demyx and Samehada who just happened to stand close by.

They had met up with Nanami in Merlin's house, Cid, Merlin and Leon were there too, but Merlin was too caught up in his book to even take note of the yelling, the others had long since decided not to upset the woman even more.

"Watch, she's gonna repeat this for at least two hours" Zexion said. "She loves to argue but don't have much to argue about".

Ienzo just nodded in agreement.

"Oh and one more thing!" Kairi said, interrupting her mother's rants for the tenth time, before swiftly picking up the shadow. "I found this".

Nanami stared at it, and screamed. "You brought a heartless with you? Kairi! Of all people you should know better".

"No you don't understand!" Kairi said. "This isn't just any shadow, he's…he's…" her voice seemed to fail her, how was she supposed to tell her this shadow was the son she thought she'd lost years ago? Or without breaking her promise to Zexion, she looked at the cat, who was looking at the ground, then she looked at Sora.

"Uhm, how do we explain this?" Sora said. "You know where heartless come from right?"

"Well of course I do" Nanami said. "Heartless are born from the darkness of people's hearts, anyone should know that."

"Well the thing is…" Sora started again. "That one… was born from the darkness in your son's heart".

At first Nanami just gazed at him like he was some kind of idiot, then her eyes flew up as she grasped what the boy had just said, and stared from Sora, to Ienzo, to Kairi, back at Sora again, then at Trixi who was eating something she hoped was commercial cat food and not a rat and then at Ienzo once more.

"Are you trying to tell me…that this…shadow…is Ienzo?" she said shocked.

"Looks like it" Kairi said, smiling innocently.

"But how…how did he…how do you even know that?" Nanami asked.

"Uhm…" Yeah how would they know? Sure she was able to recognize Sora the first time she saw his heartless form, but they'd been best friends for as long as she could remember, she'd recognized him later only because Roxas said so, same about this, Zexion had told her. "Schemer told me" she said before even thinking it trhough, she could practically feel Zexion's glare, but she didn't look at him.

"Your cat? How does he know?" Nanami asked, now even more surprised.

Zexion gave of an annoyed growling sound, before deciding the game was pretty much over anyway.

"Because I'm _not _a cat, not a normal one anyway" he said.

"Okay, I would be more surprised at the cat talking but I'm over talking animals a long time ago" Nanami sighed, she didn't even look at Zexion.

"My real name is Zexion, I'm a nobody. In case you didn't know that's what becomes of the empty shell that's left behind when a person turns into a heartless" Zexion explained.

"What kind of name is Zexion?" Nanami asked.

"It's a far better name than Fluffy anyway, yet another proof why you shouldn't be allowed to name anything but your own pets, hardly that" Zexion said.

"Oh great, I recognize that tone. You said nobodies were the shells left behind by heartless didn't you? Then that makes you…" Nanami said.

"Ienzo's nobody. Switch the letters around ma, its not that damn hard" Zexion said, he probably would have used more sarcasm but Nanami quickly snatched him and gave him a big hug.

"I can't believe it, I've missed you so much, but why didn't you say something? Why didn't you say anything?" she said.

"Ach! Mom, I don't have a heart anymore but it's still uncomfortable not being able to breathe!" Zexion yelped.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry dear" Nanami said and loosened her grip.

"That…is one reason…I never told you" Zexion said and jumped out of his mother's arms, he actually appeared to be hyperventilating. **(Usagi: this is why you should never hugged Zexion…especially LiD-Zexion who's encountered Annie Tarb Ginnoyan…)**

Axel, Sora and Riku burst into laughter.

"It must have been awful, for you, both…or… if you're both Ienzo…" Nanami said, looking from the heartless to the nobody-cat.

"Just say both, it's easier that way" Demyx said. "Besides, same person or not, heartless and nobody can be veeeery different."

"But how could this happen? Oh don't tell me, it was that Xehanort-guy right? I never did trust him" Nanami said. "In fact you would have been wise to stay clear of him the moment he showed up."

Ienzo tried his best to look innocent, Zexion groaned.

"I think you hit head on there" Axel said. "But perhaps Zexy here would like to tell you that story himself?"

Zexion just replied with a cold stare, and didn't say anything.

"Later mom, right now we've got to help Zexion and Ienzo back together, so they can get their heart back!" Kairi said.

"And how were you planning to do that?" Nanami said.

"That's just it. One of Zexion's old friends says he's found a way, so we were planning to go out and see him" Kairi said.

"And exactly where is this friend of his?" Nanami asked suspiciously. "And more importantly WHO is he?"

Zexion groaned again. "Its Even mom, or more precisely his nobody, you remember him right? One of m more "decent" friends I believe you called him?" he said. "As for where, well we don't know yet."

"Oh… I guess that would be fine…but I still don't like the idea of you going" Nanami said to Kairi.

"But mother, I want to make sure he's okay, besides big brother is with me right?" Kairi said.

Nanami just stared at her, and at Zexion and Ienzo, like she considered neither of them to be really responsible big brothers.

"Aw come on!" The next outbreak came from a more unexpected side, more precisely Riku, who'd kept quiet throughout most of the conversation, by order of Kairi. "She just came back from a trip to the Netherworld, the End of the World and back, and do you see a scratch on her? I don't think so! We weren't planning on going on any dangerous mission; we're just going to see a few old acquaintances, there won't be any fighting unless Axel here gets extra annoying, in which case it would be settled between me and him, Kairi would be in higher risks of getting kidnapped from her own bedroom than ANYTHING harming her while we're travelling… and now I owe you both an ice cream don't I?"

"I think I'll let this one slide" Kairi said giggling.

Nanami merely eyed him suspiciously.

"What's your name again?" she asked.

"Riku" the teen replied.

"Well Riky, I think I know how to protect my own daughter?"

"Really? Since the last time you tried to "protect" her she ran of."

"You know what? Scratch what I said, you owe me two ice creams" Kairi said.

"You know what? Ignore what my friend here said, I'll make sure Kairi is okay and if she isn't just hold me responsible okay?" Sora said quickly.

Nanami groaned. "Well somehow I get the feeling she's going to run of even if I try to keep her here" she said. "Fine, you can go, but if anything happens…eyh, are you listening?"

Obviously not, as the teenage girl just started screaming and jumping up and down on joy.

"She gets exited easily… I'm not sure if this is gonna be a happy visit or not" Demyx said.

"Hey, you're way too pessimistic" Samehada said.

* * *

**Usagi: isn't Nanami such a sweet and understanding mother?**

**Riku: how should I know, my parents haven't even showed up in this fic. For all I know I could be orphan. Not that I mind…**

**Usagi: you never had parents, you popped up from a hole in the ground. Everyone knows that.**

**Riku: ooookay**

**Zexion: it beats having her for a mother. I'm just glad she didn't get to name me.**

**Nanami: hey…**

**Usagi: You'll have lots of time making fun of Nanami's name-giving abilities later. **

**Leon: were we in the room this whole chapter?**

**Usagi: yes.**

**Leon: then why didn't we get any lines?**

**Usagi: because you were too busy looking at Cid's PC, using the internet. **

**Since as you know**

**(Starts singing)  
The internet is really really great!**

**Schrödinger: (appears out of nowhere) for porn! (Disappears)**

**Leon: what?**

**Usagi: I've got a fast connection so I don't have to wait!**

**Schrödinger: (Appears out of nowhere) for porn! (Disappears)**

**Leon: who was that?**

**Usagi: there's always some new site, I browse all day and night, its like I'm surfing at the speed of light!  
Schrödinger: For…**

**Zakura: Rabbits. Sorry cat boy, that's what Usagi is normally searching for.**

**Usagi: that's correct…**

**Leon: WHO IS HE AND WHY IS HE HERE?**

**Usagi: he, is my favourite character from Hellsing and he's here because… he's everywhere and nowhere at the same time, who agreed to help me do an Avenue Q reference.**

**Zakura: so that's who was hiding behind the curtain...**

**Schrödinger: (sings) the internet is for anime, the internet is for anime. Why'd you think the net was born?**

**Usagi and schrö: Anime, anime anime!**

**Zakura: (slaps face) Please review, and tell those two to stop, PLEASE!**


	16. Return to Haven City

**Zakura: here comes another chapter from an eccentric old woman.**

**Usagi: the f…I'm not old!**

**Zakura: you're 20! That sounds pretty old to me.**

**Usagi: that's because you're a rabbit with a life-expectancy at little more than 10 years and that's if we're lucky. **

**Well yes here is another chapter, finished only ten minutes before my 20. Birthday (which does in fact sound scarily old…shudder) but which I'm unable to upload because of the crappiest internet connection ever.**

**Zakura: aw, it's not the crappiest ever, if it was it wouldn't work at all, at least now it works every other minute or so.**

**Usagi: hasn't worked in a while now (kicks Rabbit the laptop) **

**Rabbit: IT'S NOT MY FAULT! (Pouts) I may have a broken screen but I can't help it if the internet signals don't work.**

**Usagi: whatever, I need someone to blame so I'm blaming you.**

**Rabbit: (Starts playing "Blame Canada" on iTunes)**

**Usagi: this has nothing to do with Canada stupid computer… well anyway, here comes another chapter, with once again a short Jak and Daxter reference…well they are there, that's where most of the references end…and my OCs are there too, too lazy to introduce them again since I already did in LiD, they won't play much part here anyway, and most likely only two will be shown beyond this chapter… and a computer who's even dumber than mine is.**

**Rabbit: WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE?**

**Usagi: LET ME GET ON THE INTERNET TO UPLOAD THIS AND MAYBE I'LL LIKE YOU BETTER!**

* * *

**Chapter 16**

**Return to Haven City**

* * *

Having said goodbye to their friends (Nanami crying her eyes out) the Highwind was finally ready to take of again.

"The fuel tank is full" Chip the chipmunk said. "But try not to fill it up with demons and take it to the End of the World again".

"Fine, we won't" Riku said. "Hopefully it'll only be two demons, one of which I'm hoping to get rid of soon."

"I sure hope he isn't talking about me" Samehada said.

"No, it wasn't my idea to bring you along but you're not as annoying as bringing a heartless demon fox" Riku said.

"Wow Samehada, you're lucky, that's probably the closest you'll get to get a compliment from Riku" Sora said.

"Nah, I just don't want to pay for any more ice creams" Riku said.

"What ice cream? You never bought the first one you owe me" Sora complained.

"Will you two stop arguing for five minutes so we can leave?" Kairi asked. "Who wants to drive?"

"Not Riku!" Sora said before Riku even had time to open his mouth.

"Hey! I can drive the ship fine" Riku said.

"Sure, but you stink at landing it" Sora said.

Riku looked about to say something, until he remembered Sora was right, about every time he had tried to land the gummi ship it had usually ended with a crash in the past, Chip and Dale had even begged him not to try to land it ever again, since it usually ended with a lot of extra work for them.

So after quite bit of pouting and complains on Riku's side of the Highwind being too hard to control, the gang took of, Sora as a pilot.

"So where to?" Sora asked the demon fox, still in "mini-form", who was standing on the floor next to him, balancing on the dashboard with his front paws.

"I think it's that way" he said, pointing towards a random constellation. "I'm seeing some kind of desert area, and a space station."  
"A desert AND a space station? Make up your mind" Riku said.

"No, it's definitely both" Kyuubi said. "The station must have stranded."

"Well there certainly aren't few worlds with deserts out there" Axel said. "There's Agrabah, the Pride Lands got some desert areas I think, and the wasteland areas surrounding Haven City and Spargus of course."

"The latter one sounds familiar" Kyuubi said and seemed to think about it for a short second. "Yes, Buxyuki has definitely heard the word Spargus being mentioned lately."

"Fine, then lets check that out" Sora said.

The Highwind turned around to go into the direction Kyuubi had pointed, towards a world the keybladers hadn't been at for quite some time, not since their last adventure.

Back then it had been first an accident, then once again as an attempt to help Sora who'd been transformed into a heartless. Thinking back it would make sense for Vexen to be there; since it had been there they found the light eco, which apparently helped getting a heartless and nobody back to normal.

After a while they could see their selected destination ahead, a world much covered in wasteland but also a few forests, and finally a large city.

"So where to? Haven City, Spargus or shall we go directly to the wasteland?" Riku asked.

"Is this a good time to mention that I don't do well in deserts?" Samehada asked nervously. "I know I'm a fish out of water normally, and I can breathe in air, but if there's too little humidity…"

"Make a portable fish tank?" Sora suggested.

Kairi couldn't help but giggle at that comment. "Maybe its better if we left him somewhere humid, there's a lake in Haven City isn't it?" she suggested.

"What? I didn't come along to be left behind in some lake! Particularly not in a city, they tend to me polluted…wait, is it polluted? Do you know? Cause a polluted sea is just as bad as a desert" Samehada said.

"Ach, lets just ask the elves okay? Maybe someone there has an idea" Sora suggested.

He drove the gummi ship down to the port, which they had previously chosen as a landing spot, it being the only place that wasn't covered by buildings or ruins of buildings.

As they got out of the ship, Samehada frowned while looking at the water. "It smells bad" he said. "Who knows what's lurking down there?"

"We could just put you in a goldfish bowl" Riku shrugged.

"Are you INSANE? Those cramped things?? In case you haven't noticed I'm a tiny bit larger than your average goldfish!" Samehada asked.

"I thought that space ship looked too colourful to belong here" a new voice suddenly said.

The gang turned around and noticed they weren't alone. There stood a young girl with blue and green hair, alongside an orange female ottsel with blonde hair on her head.

"Keira! Tess, it's been too long" Kairi said happily. "Seems you made it trhough the Kras Cup in one piece?"

"Yup" Keira said giggling. "Jak won the first price".

"With help from Daxter of course" Tess added.

"But if you ask him, he's going to tell you he won the whole thing" Keira said. "And then he'll probably tell you how he singlehandedly defeated Mizo too, probably with an army of metalheads and lurkers to his disposal."

"Mizo worked with metalheads and lurkers?" Axel asked.

"No, but this is Daxter we're talking about after all" Keira said.

"He could write great action stories" Tess said.

"Hey, you guys remember Sora?" Kairi asked, pulling her boyfriend closer to her.

"Why of course, welcome back" Keira said. "You're looking far better than the last time we met."

"Thanks, though that doesn't take much" Sora said.

"Well you've got to tell us the whole stories, the rest of the gang are in the Naughty Ottsel, we can go there" Tess said.

--

There were in fact quite a few people at the Naughty Ottsel.

Most of their old friends were there, Jak, Daxter, Ashelin, Torn, Kate, Tetra, Cornelius and Tanya.

"Well what do you know, if it isn't your old friends with the giant keys" Daxter said.

"Hello to you too" Axel said.  
"We were actually here looking for some old friends of ours" Kairi said. "Have you seen a blonde arctic fox, a white nine tailed fox, a pink rabbit and a yellow bird or a blonde woman around?"

"And I thought we had some strange friends" Cornelius said, as Tanya (who sat on top of his goggles) decided to pluck out a thread of his hair. "Ow! Knock it of."

"Not a giant space station in the middle of the desert either?" Kyuubi asked.

"Hey! We know one of those don't we?" Daxter asked, poking Jak.

"Yeah, Erol's old war station fell down just outside Haven City a few years back, is that what you're looking for?" Cornelius asked.

"Could be?" Sora said, looking at Kyuubi.

"Hey, don't look at me; I don't know who owned it previously" the fox said.

"I could take you there, no one's been there in ages though so don't expect it to be clean, well possibly except if your friends are there" Cornelius said, jumping to his feet. "But first of, I see you have some new faces…Is that a fish?"

"Well we've met before, kind of" Sora said. "I'm Sora, the new shadow is Ienzo and that's Kyuubi and Samehada, and yeah he's a fish… which reminds me, he doesn't want to come along to the desert because of the drought, and refuses to wait at the lake, does anyone know anywhere with fresh water he could stay?" he asked while Samehada sighed at the idea of being left behind again.

"I have a fish tank that's clean" Tess said. "As long as he doesn't eat some of my smaller fish."

"I'll try to contain myself, but can't promise anything" Samehada said laughing. "Might be easier if I got something to eat first."

"Then that's settled, next stop the flut-flut-ranch!" Cornelius said.

"That's some detour" Kate said raising an eyebrow. "I know it's supposedly faster to ride a flut-flut than walking but the farm is waaaay past the war station."  
"Aw, fine, we'll walk" Cornelius said disappointed, whilst the others laughed at him.

--

"Okay guys, there it is"

The party was standing by a clearing in the wasteland surrounding Haven City, most of the area was covered in desert, and various machine parts lying around, oh yeah, and the massive red war station.

Despite Cornelius' claims of the war station being abounded a few of the engines still appeared to be running.

"There's someone there for sure" Tanya said. "Friends of yours?"

"Maybe, let's check it out" Riku said and started running towards it before even consulting the others.

They made it into the station with ease; it was clear whoever was using it for whatever reasons hadn't found out how to lock the door yet.

However as soon as they had entered a trapdoor opened….two feet behind the heroes.

"Aperture Science would please like to ask you to take a few steps back, and then there will be cake" a strange voice said.

"Yeah right, come out here and make us!" Riku said summoning the Way to Dawn.

"It sounded like a computer Riku" Kairi said.

"And not very smart one at that" Axel remarked.

"Let's ignore what it says and keep going" Sora suggested.

"Hey! Come back here! You're disturbing the test area!" The computer voice said.

Cornelius looked around, spotted a speaker system and then shot it. "Tell it to someone who cares missy" he said.

"You are aware that you only shot one speaker, I am still alive" the voice said, now coming from a different speaker further away.

"A darnit!" Cornelius said.

"Ignore it, we've got company" the heartless fox said.

And sure enough, a white fox suddenly bounced out from a sidedoor.

"Hey, it's Buxyuki, its good to see you boy" Kairi said petting the fox.

"Leave it to Kairi to befriend even the most heartless of monsters" Axel said. "But at least that means Vexen must be here too".

"Affirmative" another voice said as Vexen the polar fox entered. "I hope the computer wasn't causing too much trouble."

"You made that?" Cornelius asked, and pointed at the busted speaker. The other one played the tune of a teasing song.

"No, I did not, I just found the parts lying around in this station and decided to fix it rather than build a PC from scratch. Now I wish I never bothered" Vexen said.

"I'm having even more trouble believing my brother made that" Cornelius said, and gazed at the other speaker, he just now noticed there was a screen bellow it, with a picture of a cake on it. "Must be a fluke, or someone else made it to mess with him."

"Well it can't have been you, you can't even install a computer game on your own PC" Tanya said.

"Hey! I'm not as stupid as you keep claiming I am, I just prioritize differently" Cornelius said. "But if you asked me just how much gunpowder it would need to blow this thing up…"

"Could you please go argue someplace else?" Zexion said. "Actually we were here to talk to you, Larxene claimed you'd come up with a new theory on heartless?"

Vexen was quick to notice the heartless the party had brought along, and grinned.

"So you haven't been out of work since she talked to you" he said. "Well I can clearly see whose heartless that is" he added pointing at Kyuubi. "But who's that?" he asked pointing at Ienzo.

"That would be my brother" Kairi said.

Vexen stared at her. "I was wondering when you would find that out" he said.

"You knew?" Sora asked.

"Well duh, Ienzo and my other Even were co-workers, of course I knew. Besides you probably don't remember but you used to sneak after him on the way to work sometimes" Vexen said.

"I did?" Kairi asked, looking at Zexion.

"You did" the cat said. "But you never got longer than 10 metres out of the house before I spotted you. You were always lousy at hiding."

Kairi glared at him.

"Well I guess there's no need to wait then, but I must warn you, I've only got successfully test the theory once, twice if you count what I saw happened to Sora, so I can't say if it's completely safe yet" Vexen said.

Everyone gazed at Kyuubi.

"What…You want to use ME as a test subject??" the fox said.

Buxyuki started to look nervous too.

"Will there be cake afterwards?" the computer voice said.

"NO GLADOS THERE WON'T BE ANY CAKE!" Vexen yelled.

Everyone stared at him in shock, but the fox merely ignored them.

"Follow me" he said calmly as he entered the next room.

* * *

**Usagi: That was all. And yes GlaDos is the name of the computer. (And yes it's spelled that way) It's abbreviated of SOMETHING but I can't go check what it was since…**

**Rabbit: what if I just crash now so you loose this chapter?**

**Usagi: Did you hear something PSP?**

**PSP: …**

**Rabbit: it can't get on the internet either you know…even less since the wireless hasn't worked at all.**

**Usagi: but I can play Crisis Core on it.**

**Rabbit: ….I have Sims 2…**

**Zack: oooh. Sims 2. (Snatches Sims 2 disk and escapes into the PSP)**

**Rabbit: HEY!**

**Usagi: Please review…**

**GlaDos: and then there will be cake.  
Rabbit: aw please… Everyone knows the cake is a lie…even if you HAVEN'T played Portal (which btw: Usagi hasn't) **

**Usagi: YouTube is such a wonderful website…if only I could access it.**

**Rabbit: ... (turns to the modem) GOD DAMNIT WORK ALREADY! (Kicks modem)**

**Modem: Zzzzzz**

**Rabbit: aw for the love of…**

**Zakura: why are the electronics talking?**

**PSP: because its boring to be quiet, and both Rabbit and I have speakers so…why not?**

**Zakura: I can't even find a decent answer to that…**

**Usagi: please review! And no…there won't be cake... unless you bake one, THEN there will be cake!**

**And quite obviously the internet connection did return eventually..**

**Rabbit: (shakes the modem) if you fail on me now I will murder you!**


	17. The Cake is Not A Lie

**Usagi: before we start I'd like to add something I didn't have time to add last time (in fear of loosing internet connection I submitted the chapter ****before checking this) GlaDOS stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. And as you might have guessed already is from the game Portal, which I obviously never played as I'm not really a fan of those types of games (and for anyone who says I should try: as long as I have JRPGs and Super Smash Brawl I don't care!)… but I watched her voice clips on YouTube and decided to throw her in for comic relief. **

**The cake too is used as a rather random plot-device in this chapter as something quite interesting is revealed about Shadow-Ienzo… **

* * *

**Chapter 17**

**The Cake is Not a Lie**

* * *

Vexen's lab didn't really look as sterile as one might have thought. It was burnt marks on the walls everywhere and quite a few pieces of junk lying around.

He had several computer screens in his lab, about half of them showed cakes.

Vexen stared at the screens. "GlaDOS!" he yelled.

"Sorry sir" the computer said, and soon the cakes disappeared and were replaced with various tables and forms.

"Just hope she locked away those cakes she made herself… how a PC can bake cakes is beyond me but we'd rather not want Ienzo to find them" Vexen said.

"Why not?" Kairi asked.

"Oh…well, you see…" Vexen started but got cut of as a crash noise was heard.

"Great job Vexen, you just jinxed it" Zexion said.

Suddenly Ienzo the shadow came zooming in from another room, face all covered in cream, crashed into one of the screens before running of to a different room, probably to find more cake.

"So…he's…hyperactive?" Sora asked.

"Yes, ironic isn't it?" Vexen said. "He's always been like that; no one could bring snacks to work in case he found them."

"You're exaggerating, I wasn't THAT bad" Zexion muttered.

"I'd still like to see that" Axel said grinning.

"Later, right now we have to catch that shadow!" Riku said.

"Shouldn't be too hard as long as he stays inside" Vexen said.

They followed the trail of cream on the ground to the open exit door.

"Who opened that?" Vexen asked.

"He stole my cake!" GlaDOS whined. "So I chased him out".

"I am so taking that computer apart" Vexen said, slapping his face. "And shadows are faster than they look, especially the ones hyped up on sugar. Now how are we going to catch him?"

Cornelius grinned.

"It would be too far to go get the flut fluts, it would take us hours to walk to the farm from here" Tanya complained. "Not to mentioned there's still quite a few heartless and metalheads around.

"Who said anything about walking?" Cornelius said and whistled.

Within seconds, not one but three large birds came running above the sandy hills.

The first, a blue and yellow bird with plenty of yellow spots around the tail and wings, the party recognized as Cornelius' own flut-flut Spot.

The second was nearly all blue, except a yellow patch on the back and white belly, was the leader of the flut-flut herd Phoenix.

The last one to arrive was covered in both yellow and a few green markings, including a flower-like mark on her wings, it was Blossom.

"Aw cute, it's like a whole family" Kairi said.

"Not quite" Cornelius said. "Spot's been breaking out a lot before, and recently Phoenix has started to follow him, and now Blossom has started to follow Phoenix. If their egg had feet it would probably follow too" he added rolling his eyes.

Kairi stared at him.

"Don't get so exited, it won't hatch in weeks yet" Cornelius said.

"Regardless, at least we have some fast legs to catch that hyper big brother of yours" Riku said and climbed up on Phoenix's back. "Just too bad there aren't enough birds for everyone.

"I'm sure Charles would start complaining if the whole lot ran of sometimes" Cornelius said. "Most of them aren't that fit for life in the wild without Phoenix protecting them…and he can't protect them all".

"Well since Riku already seems to have dibs on Phoenix Kairi should take Blossom" Sora said. "He's your brother after all; Zexion could ride with either one of you since he's a cat".

"Sure rub it in" Zexion said.

"Well it's the truth Fluffy, accept it" Axel said, and got bitten.

"Stop that you two, are you sure you are my _older_ brother?" Kairi asked as she picked up Zexion and placed him on Blossom's back.

"I hope those birds are fast, since that shadow looked like he had been drinking rocket fuel" Vexen said.

"That wouldn't surprise me if he did" Sora muttered.

"Oh they're fast alright" Cornelius said, he'd already climbed up on Spot's back. "We'll be back with the little rascal before you know it."

Before anyone had time to argue about that Spot and Cornelius were already far off.

"He wasn't kidding, come on Kairi, we better catch up to him, as he's the only one who knows the way around in this desert" Riku said.

The other riders took of, Phoenix seemed to be running a bit faster than necessary in order to catch up to his friends…or perhaps he just wanted to pass him.

The two male birds even seemed like flut-flut versions of Riku and Sora.

"So now what? We're just going to wait?" Axel asked.

Before anyone had even time to answer, Kyuubi flew out of the door, suddenly increasing in size just as he came out before reaching his full size, at which point he stopped and glared out into the desert.

"What's wrong with you?" Sora asked.

"Heartless" Kyuubi growled.

"Well yeah. Sorry to break this to you but there's heartless everywhere, heck this desert crawls with them" Vexen said.

"This isn't an ordinary heartless" Kyuubi said. "It reeks of that dofus who turned me into this."

"The dofus who…oh snap!" Demyx said before suddenly running back inside.

"What was that all about?" Vexen asked.

"He's Demyx, what did you expect?" Axel asked.

"That was odd even for Demyx…" Vexen said.

"You might want to see this for yourself, is he far away?" Sora asked Kyuubi.

"Not too far, if you have four meter long legs that is" Kyuubi said. "But hey, hop on, you're not much heavier than the fleas I had last month anyway."

"I hope you got rid of all those then" Axel joked. "Since I'd hate to get eaten by one".

"Most fleas aren't fireproof" Kyuubi remarked, as Sora, Vexen and Axel crawled up on his back. "And if you feel like pulling in my fur while we are there I'd like to remind you, neither are you".

Before anyone had time to object, the monster fox took of, running at such speeds it was nearly impossible NOT to pull out fur, if it wasn't for the fact that Kyuubi's fur was very strong, hopefully he didn't even feel it if he lost some.

Eventually they stopped at a barren desert landscape (which looked noticeably just like any other place in the desert).

"Are you sure this is the right place? I mean Deym is a water-user, what good could he do here?" Axel asked.

"Anything with water gives you trouble" Sora reminded him.

"True…a pity my heartless isn't around, if it was I'd probably be able to beat him" Axel sighed.

"Do you know what kind of heartless it is?" Vexen asked.

"Ehm… Crimson Jazz I think" Axel said.

"Really… you might want to turn around" Vexen said.

Axel turned his head, and surprisingly enough there was a crimson jazz standing just behind him, staring at him.

"It wouldn't happen to be that one is it?" Sora asked.

"Well what do you know…it is" Axel said.

"Huh…that was incredibly easy" Sora said.

"Either that or it proves the Author is just plain lazy" Axel said before suddenly a coconut fell of the only tree within a mile distance on his head. "And I really wish she'd stop breaking the fourth wall."

"You kind of started that yourself. Now where is Deym?" Sora asked, directing the last question at Kyuubi.

"He's near aright" Kyuubi growled. "Knowing him he's probably sun-bathing somewhere".

They started looking around, it wasn't much places to hide it being in the desert and all, and soon they spotted the heartless…truthfully lying behind a rock sunbathing. (Though still wearing the black cloak).

He lifted his sunglasses a bit as he noticed he wasn't alone.

"Well times haven't changed…still can't get a moment of peace even in the middle of the desert" Deym sighed. "Do you guys want to get beaten up so badly?"

"I should ask you the same thing, this isn't really your element" Sora said. "Now what are you doing here?"

"Why geez, can't a heartless just take a break sometimes?" Deym asked grinning.

"We've been trhough this before and I think we decided the answer was no" Sora said. "So I ask again: Why are you here? In the desert? I thought you'd be hanging out with your new friends".

"Friends? Don't make me laugh! The shark guy might be bearable if he wasn't a demon, I've had some bad experiences with them betraying me" Deym said, casting a glare at Kyuubi. "And don't even get me STARTED on Xehanort, he thinks he's so great with his big plans for the heartless and nobodies and all, I don't want any part of that."

"Wait…what plans?" Sora asked.

"I guess you'd like to know" Deym said, grinning again. "You're just your average ordinary everyday superhero, trying to save the world but never really sure what the villains are up to…say where's beaver-boy?"  
"We'll tell you if you told us what Xehanort's plan is" Axel suggested.

"Oh…heck why am I asking…he's back at the base quivering and hiding from me while that crazy computer of yours tries to tempt him out from under the table by offering him some cake" Deym said.

"How do you know?" Vexen asked.

"Because he's my nobody, duh. You have to come up with a better excuse if you want to figure out what the big plan is" the heartless added.

"What about: Tell me and I won't beat you up and destroy another one of your "precious" guitars?" Sora suggested, drawing the Oathkeeper.

"Oh I'll show…" Deym said, and looked about ready to summon his water dragon…but there was no reaction. "Oh snap… Sorry kid, gotta save the fighting to some other time."

"Aw come on!" Sora said.

"Fine then. Its not like I'm loosing anything by telling you…unless Xehanort found out… He's making some kind of new super-heartless or something, and if Xehanort asks who told you it wasn't me, okay?" Deym said.

"Fine, we're not on speaking terms anyway. But what kind of super heartless?" Sora asked.

Deym started laughing, a rather sinister sounding laugh as well.

"Trust me kid, _you _don't want to know" he said. "I would ask you to ask the little firecracker over there, I'm pretty sure he sent it, but it probably wouldn't understand it if anyone tried to explain such a plan anyway." Deym opened a dark portal and was about to walk trhough.

"Hey! Don't try to run away!" Sora yelled after him.

"Sorry, can't stay. There is a race to be run and a song to be sung. But you'll find out soon enough, the future's coming fast Keyblade Master" Deym said soon before disappearing into the darkness.

Sora stared at the spot where the heartless had just been standing.

"What did he mean by that? And why did he say _I_ wouldn't want to know?" he said eventually.

"For once I am just as confused as you are" Vexen said. "But I don't like the sound of it."

* * *

**Usagi: THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!**

**Sora: WHAT SUSPENSE? YOU WROTE IT!**

**Usagi: true… and what suspense it is… (Grins at Sora)**

**Sora: I really hate it when she does that.**

**Usagi: I gave of more than I planned to in this chapter… one reason was to make Ael's appearance less awkward…even though the original idea was in fact just to have him show up with no explanation…**

**Axel: HAH! I knew you were lazy! (Coconut falls in his head).**

**Usagi: be glad I put your heartless in the story, without him you won't have a chance of getting your heart back.**

**Axel: Oh I don't worry, being around Roxas makes me feel almost as if I have a heart.**

**Everyone: (Gazes at Axel)**

**Axel: what?**

**Usagi: still people wonder why AkuRoku is such a popular pairing.**

**Roxas: (Jumps out of a nearby cardboard box) DON'T YOU DARE!**

**Sora: why are you still here?**

**Usagi: Don't worry! There'll be no Yaoi in this fanfic, so Axel, watch your mouth.**

**Roxas: thank god… **

**Axel: I DIDN'T MEAN IT THAT WAY!**

**Usagi: STILL YOU'RE GIVING FANGIRLS THE WRONG IDEA!**

**Riku: in other words: You're putting strange ideas into Usagi's head which everyone knows is BAD. With capital B, A, and D.**

**Usagi: send in a review! Or else Mao will do strange experiments on you!**

**Sora: who the heck is Mao?**

**Usagi: You'll find out in LiD3.**

**Sora: you meanie!**

**Almaz: (Comes out of same box as Roxas) You don't want to know who he is.**

**Mao: (Also comes up from the box, pushing Almaz out of the way) Did anyone say my name? **

**Flonne: (comes out of the box too, pushing both Almaz and Mao to different sides) DISGAEA RULES!  
**

**Demyx: aw snap…now there are more of them. **

**Usagi: don't worry. Almaz is not a demon, Mao however is, and a rather crazy demon too.**

**Mao: hey!**

**Usagi: ...Crazily awesome.**

**Mao: (glare)**

**Usagi: oh whatever.**


	18. The Heart is Not A Lie

**Usagi: LOOK EVERYONE! DARKNESS OF THE HEART HAS BEEN UPDATED!**

**Zakura: LIKE OMG!**

**Sora: SHUT UP I'M TRYING TO SLEEP!**

**Usagi: o.O… Okay…. Well here comes another chapter which may finally mean the end of Axel and Zexion's nobody lives. Dun dun dun!  
Axel: Hurray!**

**Zexion: … yay.**

**Usagi: You could sound more enthusiastic.**

**Zexion: I have no heart, everyone knows that so why bother pretending that I do?**

**Usagi: oh…good point. Well here comes another…title portal-inspired… chapter:

* * *

  
**

**Chapter 18**

**The Heart is Not a Lie

* * *

  
**

"Find anything yet?" Riku asked.

"Maybe I would if you stopped nagging" the cat with his nose down in the desert sand muttered.

"Sorry! I just didn't realize how noises affect your sense of smell."

"… It doesn't. It's just disturb…at-CHOO!"

"Did you get sand up your nose?" Kairi asked, still sitting on Blossom's back while Riku and Zexion (mostly Zexion) tried to find Ienzo's tracks.

"No. I god sadd up my node" Zexion muttered, rubbing his nose.

"He's odd. If I talk too much he can't smell and if his nose isn't working he can't hear anything" Riku said.

"I think he just got sand in his ears too. There's a lot of that around here, and his ears look like sand-magnets" Cornelius said.

Riku cast a quick gaze at him, noting that Cornelius' own ears had to be at least ten centimetres long… But he decided not to comment on it, if Kairi told Sora later he'd probably said he owed him another ice cream or that.

"Great. How are we going to find a tiny shadow heartless in this desert when our track do…cat has sand in his nose" he said instead. "Why are all the cats in this story acting like dogs?"

"Because you and Sora thought it was a good idea to teach Trixi how to fetch. I'm sure Ienzo will show up again soon" Kairi said.

"You're awfully optimistic" Riku said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well when Sora was a heartless he liked to stay around Roxas right? So then Ienzo should want to come back to Zexion eventually" Kairi said.

"Just as long as he doesn't run into someone else before that" Riku said.

"Like who?"

"Someone bad…I don't know, I just have a nasty feeling Xehanort is up to something. Bad… Because he always is, and I should know."

"Hey Riku! Kairi!"

Suddenly Sora came running up to the heartless-seekers, followed by Axel, Ael, Vexen and Kyuubi.

"You'll never guess who we just found" Sora said.

"Axel's heartless?" Riku asked, pointing at the Crimson Jazz heartless.

"Oh? Oh yeah that too… But we also just met Deym!" Sora said.

"I was wondering why Demyx wasn't with you" Riku muttered.

"What did he want?" Kairi asked.

"Nothing really… or it didn't seem like it… but he said Xehanort is plotting something ("Told you so" Riku said) something about making a new more powerful breed of heartless!" Sora said.

"A new breed? What kind of?" Kairi asked.

"I don't know, Deym didn't say, he mentioned that _I_ wouldn't like it, but I don't know what he means about that, who _would_ like a new type of heartless? But he said that was part of the reason why this guy was so easy to find, like Xehanort had asked him to go seek us out or something" Sora said.

"That doesn't make any sense, if he wanted to create a super heartless why would he send his lackeys of to find their other halves? Wouldn't that like… ruin the cause?" Riku asked.

"Unless he was sent to spy on you guys" Cornelius said.

"No way, I'm sure I would know that, he's my other half, got it memorized?" Axel asked. "Heartless can't keep secrets like that from their nobodies….right?" he added, looking at Sora.

"No. At least I couldn't…well I never tried" Sora said.

"Well it wouldn't matter either way. As long as we get the heartless and nobodies back together there's nothing Xehanort can do with them" Vexen said. "So lets just get this over with…but what was the deal about Demyx' heartless anyway? Is he with Xehanort or not?"

"Probably not, but maybe we should ask Demyx about that… But before we do anything else we should probably find Ienzo" Sora said.

"Sora, can I talk to you in private?" Zexion asked.

"Can't it wait?" Sora asked.

"No it can't. Unless you'd like me to tell your girlfriend about…"

"Okay fine. Excuse us for a second" Sora said, and left with the silver cat.

"Now what is it that's so important you have to blackmail me to talk about?" he asked once they were out of hearing range of the rest.

"Better get used to it kid, you're dating my younger sister, it's pretty much in my job description to be mean to you" Zexion said.

"O..k… well if you only wanted to tell me you've developed a sense of humour…"

"Not at all, I think all the sugar that shadow's been eating is affecting me too… I just wanted to check, have you had any of those weird dreams since we left the Netherworld?"

"Technically I haven't really slept since" Sora said.

"Oh yeah…that's a good point" Zexion said, had all of this really happened in one single day? It was a bit hard to tell with all the space travelling they've been doing. "But you haven't felt anything odd, like, I don't know some kind of call?"

"No. In case you hadn't noticed I'm not a heartless… not anymore" Sora said, he was starting to get tired of this conversation already. "Why don't you just ask your own heartless when you find him?"  
"You said that Deym said that you wouldn't like it right? Did he mention anything about us at all?" Zexion asked.

"Not exactly…what? Do you think Xehanort wants _me _for these experiments?" Sora asked, raising an eyebrow. "He knows there's not a chance in the world that I'd work for him."

"I know, but it's suspicious. Why would you hear the call of the heartless? Even if you did…" Zexion started, but suddenly froze in the middle of the sentence.

"What is it now?" Sora asked.

Before Zexion had time to answer, a shadow heartless suddenly ran onto the scene and hid behind Sora's foot, he still had spots of cream on his face and looked quite scared.

_They're coming! _He cried.

A giant behemoth heartless suddenly charged right through a pair of large rocks.

At least…it looked like a behemoth... only half his body appeared to be covered in some metal armour, and on one of its horns…

"Is that a laser gun?" Sora asked.

"What in the name of kingdom hearts is that thing?" Zexion asked.

A couple of moth-like heartless appeared behind the behemoth as well, Sora was pretty sure he'd seen the moths in the Netherword before.

"Are those demon heartless?" he asked.

"Those in the back are but not even a demon heartless should have a freaking laser attached to its horn" Zexion said. "If you ask me, it looks like it's been attached by a mad scientist!"

"Vexen?" Sora suggested.

"Dude, he's a bit eccentric but not insane" Zexion replied.

The behemoth roared and appeared to be charging up its lazarz…sorry, charging the laser, but before it got time to fire, three neoshadows flew at it from the side, and each of the moth demon-heartless were attacked by a group of aerial knockers.

"Heartless fighting heartless? Now I'm definitely confused" Sora said.

"How about we just get out of here before one of the groups win and go after us" Zexion said.

So they sneaked of while the heartless were fighting.

A while later the whole party gathered back at the broken space craft.

Vexen had taken them into another part of his laboratory, where he had a large machine fuelled with light eco, which according to him was going to make the process of merging heartless and nobody easier. It had several pods attached to it.

"And you're telling me that with this machine it won't hurt?" Axel said. "I have problems believing that…"

"If you want to live your life with no heart and followed around by…. GLADOS PUT THAT FIRE OUT… that pyromaniac be my guest, but I've already tried it on nr 12 and if she thought it hurt I would be severely injured by now" Vexen said.

"You tried it on Larxene?" Riku said in surprise, as a fire extinguisher came out of the wall and sprayed the table that Ael the crimson jazz had put on fire.

"She didn't tell you?" Vexen asked. "That was the main reason I asked her to go really… though it would probably be more right to call her Relena now, **(AN: I'm not sure if there was a final fantasy character named this once, if so its unrelated since I don't know her, I just thought it fitted X3) **we found her angel star heartless a few months ago and decided to give it a try."

"Angel star?" Riku said again, sounding even more shocked than the first time, which could be because of the surprise or the fact that he suddenly felt a jolt of electricity two seconds later.

"What's so surprising about that?" asked Larxene…or Relena, who was now standing in the doorway. "I heard about Demyx's heartless from GlaDos on the way here and if you ask me, _him_ having a hardcore rocker humanoid heartless is stranger than mine was."

"Relena was cuter too" GlaDos added helpfully.

"How can you tell? You're a freaking computer installed in this place" Vexen sighed.

GlaDos didn't seem to want to reply; instead she started humming a song about science and being alive.

"Either her hard drive was fried when the ship crashed or Erol was more sadistic than I thought" Cornelius said, as he stared on the computer screen that was now showing cakes again.

"Now who wants to go first?" Vexen asked, looking over at Zexion and Axel.

Axel quickly pointed at Zexion, Ienzo popped in, and pointed towards Axel.

Ael put a computer monitor on fire but Vexen didn't seem to care, only GlaDos hurried to put it back out.

"You guys are such wimps" Kyuubi said and laughed.

"Okay, then you go first" Vexen said.

The heartless fox froze, and both he and Buxyuki stared at Vexen. "You serious?" Kyuubi asked.

"Ask Buxyuki, do I ever joke about such things?" Vexen asked.

The demon foxes stared at one another, then back at Vexen.

"That's…really not necessary" Kyuubi said.

"Do you want to be complete or not? If so get in the machine" Vexen said, tapping a hind paw impatiently.

"This is animal testing!" Kyuubi accused.

"Get in the damn machine I'm tired of this arguing!" Relena said before kicking both foxes into a pod attached to the machine.

"And it seems Larxene's other is just as moody as her nobody" Axel sighed.

"Lets get this over with before he burns….or freezes the pod" Vexen said and pushed a button.

"What does that machine do anyway?" Sora asked.

"It's a gas, completely painless, and while they're both in it at the same time they should be…er… put to sleep at the same time. But they'll come back soon enough" Vexen said.

Suddenly something inside the pod started making noises, and it was making cracks.

"While we're at it… how big was Kyuubi's heartless in his regular form?" Vexen asked.

"A lot bigger than that pod…maybe we should step away" Demyx said, he was already at the other end of the room.

Before anyone had time to react more, the pod exploded, into what looked like a huge load of fur.

The expanding demon pushed the ceiling up at least two metres, before ripping it completely apart with one of its tails.

After just a few seconds, a full sized demon fox was standing halfway into halfway above the room, he'd only just avoided breaking the machine itself but he'd stepped on two pods in the process, there was now only one left. The fox smirked; he looked much like his own heartless except the fur was now a crimson red colour, other than the white tail-tips and the underside of its belly and face. It had black markings around the demonic red eyes, as well as darker tips on the ears and legs.

"Did you really have to respawn in your full size? Couldn't you have just stayed a little cute fox?!" Vexen yelled. "NO respect…"

"To be honest with yah, I hate that form" Kyuubi said, and stuck his tongue out.

He started shrinking again, but instead of turning into a small chibi-fox, he turned into a humanoid form, similar to the ones they had seen on the other bijuu.

Kyuubi's human form was still quite furry, at least his upper body was covered in fuzz. The only clothing he wore was a pair of black pants, and he still had fox-ears, and the nine tails, one of which he quickly tied around his neck making it look like a fur-scarf.

"It feels good to be back. I wasn't able to use this form as a heartless" he said.

"You could have at least had the decency to use it before you came out of the pod" Vexen sighed. "Well at least ONE pod is still intact. Who wants to go next?"

Zexion, Axel and Ienzo stared at the machine; Ael was still putting the same monitor on fire.

"So… will getting my heart back mean that I can also get out of this freaking cat-body?" he asked, looking to Relena.

"I don't have feathers anymore do I?" Relena said.

"That is true" Zexion said and sighed. "Well, shadow-boy, lets give it a go."

* * *

**Usagi: No more NekoZexion? That makes me a sad panda…**

**Zexion: so… me getting my heart back transform you into a panda bear?**

**Usagi: not my point.**

**Sora: and what the f is with those cyborg heartless? You're not going to keep on introducing new characters and don't explain where they are from again are you?**

**Usagi: Sigh…fine. They were inserted as a last way out… I wasn't planning to have them this early but now that they're here, I might as well tell more about them.**

**A new group has joined the battle. Or well technically they have always been there…demon heartless remember? But you're now seeing some different members of the party.**

**Might as well add a list of the groups we have now:**

**The Main Party- **Self explanatory.

**Organization XIII- **What are they up to anyway? I'll probably add a part about them in the next chapter, just so we can see.

**Deym- **Lone heartless not working for anyone, just out to have fun and quote songs.

**The Demons (Namely Etna, Flonne and the bijuu)- **Currently looking for a new home. They probably won't be seen much in a while.

**The Smurfs- **playing around in their little mushroom hous…WAIT A MINUTE??? Forget I said anything.

**Xehanort- **Ruling the heartless and plotting eeeevil things. Does Xemnas know about this?

**Xemnas: why wouldn't I?**

**Usagi: figured as much.**

**Demon heartless- **Oh yeah that's what I'm talking about. The behemoth that Zexion and Sora met is a modified heartless, it wasn't born like that….or well…obviously not BORN like that but you know what I mean. He was made that way by a mad scientist, what mad scientist? Well it's obviously not Vexen.

**Vexen: We've established that already. I'M NOT A MAD SCIENTIST!**

**Zakura: didn't the Netherworld go boom?**

**Usagi: Yes it did, but that doesn't mean all the demons went boom. They're still there, plotting revenge and turning ordinary heartless into laser-shooting cyborgs. **

**Sora: why are they attacking us then? …and why did the other heartless protect us?**

**Usagi: Because. You guys are important to Xehanort's plan, he's already hinted at that back in chapter 10.  
**

**Sora: eep! **

**Usagi: and the demon heartless are obviously not on Xehanort's side, seems they realized you were important and went to finish stop Xehanort's plan by killing you.**

**Sora: double-eep!**

**Kyuubi: (shrugs) demons. That's what they do. They backstab you. **

**Sora: geez. Why did we even try to help those guys.**

**Usagi: if it helps, the guy who made these heartless isn't among any demon you've met before…but I guess you would know already neither Laharl, Etna or Flonne are capable of creating half-robot heartless. **

**Laharl: what do you know about that? I can be smarter than you think… **

**Mao: yeah right. If you were so smart you could have saved our world from being pushed of to the darkest side of the universe!**

**Almaz: it was quite dark already…**

**Mao and Laharl: Shut up!**

**Almaz: eep! Sorry.  
**

**Usagi: and in case you wonder, the "moth-heartless" that showed up with the behemoth were demons from Disgaea 2 and 3 turned into heartless. Nothing special about them. **

**Laharl: heartless demons are nothing special? Usagi, meet your average heartless (picks up average shadow)**

**Usagi: Bob! There you are (Takes shadow)**

**Laharl: …**

**Mao: Does she name all the shadows in this fic?**

**Sora: seems like it… And that guy's not even a character it's just…a shadow.**

**Usagi: so? He still needed a name. **

**Shadow-Ienzo: I'm for identifying shadows!**

**Shadow-Sora: So am I!**

**Sora: I'm disturbed...  
**

**Usagi: Do review! **


	19. Mystery of the Demon Heartless

**Usagi: Woot! Now this can't classify as a slow update can it? **

**Decided to introduce a new character in this chapter, even though I didn't plan to introduce him until LiD3.**

**Mao: Now that would be boring wouldn't it?**

**Usagi: Maybe. You'll learn more about this guy in this chapter, or at least one of his hobbies…. And you'll also find out what crazy scientist made the behemoth with the laser on his head. But first: a scene from the World that Never Was, as promised:

* * *

  
**

**Chapter 19**

**Mystery of the Demon Heartless

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**

"This is just odd" Xemnas said.

He was staring down at a laser gun on the table, which he was currently standing on.

In the past he'd found it quite humiliating having to stand on the table rather than on a chair but in his current form it was either that or getting a baby chair, which was even more humiliating.

"And this was on a behemoth?" he asked the man standing on the other side of the table.

"The heartless said so" the man said, or heartless, since it was in fact Xemnas' own heartless Xehanort who stood on the opposite side. "It came along with two demon heartless, one of them we killed the other got away. I would have thought those guys would be more submissive after their home world was taken but they still seem to be following the orders of someone else."

"The overlord?" Xemnas suggested.

"If you're talking about Laharl I highly doubt that" said a strange little man standing next to Xehanort. His face was covered by a hood, and all one could see of his face was a single yellow eye, and a brown snake-tail that came out behind him. "He won't send his lackeys to do any work for him, and he's definitely not smart enough to attack a fully functional laser on top of a behemoth."

"Well Orochi, if you know so much do you know someone in the Netherworld who _could _attach a laser on a behemoth?" Xehanort asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well I haven't really been around much since that fox beat me now have I?" Orochi replied coldly. "Laharl has made himself pretty well known since the uproar he caused 3 years ago when he decided to take over his father's throne, and once he'd done that he went ahead and attacked Celestia and a human world too."

"Are there more overlords than one?" Saïx asked, the dog was standing on the floor, but with both front feet on the table. No longer a puppy he looked almost taller than the little snake-man when he stood on his hind legs.

"Oh yeah, there used to be quite a few" Orochi said, and started thinking. "Let's see… There was Overlord Krichevskoy, Laharl's father who died choking on a dumpling" Orochi seemed to snicker a bit at this. "Overlord Zetta; he hasn't been seen in a while, I heard a rumour he'd been turned into a book, but that's just ridiculous of course. Also the rumoured god of all overlords, Overlord Zenon, but no one's seen him like…ever…at least no one's been able to live to tell the tale, but no one's heard from him in a while either."

"If no one's ever seen him and lived how can you tell he exists?" Xemnas asked.

"Look who's talking about existence" Orochi muttered. "There's also Priere, who was once a demon hunter, can you believe that? I think she died too, I'm not quite sure."  
"Are there any overlords left who are alive?" Saïx asked.

"Well there's….no wait he died too…And…I think Zenon killed him…uhm…and… no, she tripped over a hellkitty and fell into a volcano…I think…. no wait, I ate him…" Orochi said snickering to himself. "Hold on… As far as I know the Dean Overlord of Maritsu Evil Academy is still alive. He's pretty strong too, and huge. Might be a bit too big to handle a gun like this even…and clumsy"

"Well that doesn't help much now does it?" Xehanort sighed. "If we'd only caught that demon heartless that got away…we could have interrogated him."

---

As it turned out, said demon heartless was already on his way back to whoever he was working for.

He'd been able to escape the battle by using a dark portal, but not without injuries, currently the moth was on his way to a large castle, crawling on the ground, since one of its wings was broken and he was unable to fly.

He struggled his way up the stairs, where a tall demon dressed as a butler opened the door for him.

"I take it the mission was a failure?" a voice said, the moment the moth had entered the door.

The mothman looked up; in front of him was a staircase, a young whitehaired demon boy stood on top of it.

"I-I'm sorry prince" the mothman heartless said. "It wasn't our fault really; we were attacked by the other heartless, I'm the only survivor and…look what those bird-heartless did to my wing!"

He lifted his front left wing, which was indeed missing a large piece of it.

The demon prince's expression changed from annoyance to…could it be? Concern?

Still, whatever was left of emotions in the moth heartless told him to be afraid, be very afraid.

"That looks pretty bad" the demon said, and took one step down the stairs. "You want me to take a look?"

The demon wasn't able to hide the excitement in his voice at the end, and the moth suddenly wished he'd never mentioned the wing. In fact he wished he'd never bothered to show up here at all, sure the demon might send out his other lackeys to kill him but even that had to be better than letting the other demon "treat" his injury.

"Oh...nono, that's okay Prince Mao. It'll probably heal right back soon, heck I feel like I can still fly already" the moth said quickly, and tried to flap its wings but was only able to bounce half a meter away from the demon prince.

"Such an injury isn't going to heal itself Morty, and hey, I could even give you some extra features" Mao said, suddenly sounding very exited, the glasses he was wearing was even fogging. "Like giant wheels to travel at extreme speeds, a flamethrower in your mouth, or what about electric antennas?"

"No thanks. I'm happy with the way I look" Morty the moth said nervously, and started bouncing towards the exit, as fast as a moth without legs and with a broken wing could go.

Mao started running after him.

"Hey come back here! Let me reconstruct you!" he shouted.

--

"Wow, this feels a bit odd…well the fact that I can feel at all is almost hard to get used to."

Back at the lab, Ienzo, now in human form again, was looking at his new/old body.

"You look great, way better than that old picture of mine anyway" Kairi said giggling.

"Well that was pretty much a washed up smudge" Sora commented.

"Yeah, congratulations. That's really nice and all but I have just one question…." Said a voice from the floor, everyone looked down at the red ottsel sitting there. "WHY AM I STILL AN OTTSEL??"

"He's right that is quite odd" Vexen said, and went to look trhough some files on the one computer monitor in the room that wasn't either burnt or ruined because GlaDOS sprayed water on it. "Both Ienzo and Relena regained their human forms soon after getting their hearts back but you look just the same."

"Hey Ax... or Ael, didn't you say you fell into a pit of dark eco after you came to this world the first time?" Sora asked. "And that you'd been like that ever since?"

"What? Oh darnit! Don't tell me because of that dark eco I can't become human again?" Ael complained.

"Aw don't worry; I'm sure you'll get used to it. Heck Daxter had a chance to turn back into to his original form once and he chose to stay an ottsel" Cornelius said. "He even got a girlfriend, girls like fuzzy animals."

"Wakana doesn't. She likes fish" Demyx muttered.

"Who is that? Your girlfriend?" Kairi asked.

"Ex-girlfriend" Demyx said shortly.

"Well fine then. If I'm doomed to live the rest of my life as a little fuzzy rat I might as well make the best of it" Ael said. "And hey, just keep calling me Axel if you like, that sounds cooler anyway".

"Sure, Ael sounds a bit like ale anyway" Riku said.

"I heard that!" the ottsel shouted.

"It sure is lucky it worked out for someone" said a voice at the door.

A pink very fluffy rabbit was standing there, and he had a rat on his head.

"Where have you been?" Sora asked.

"Gambling" The rat, Luxord said.

"Watering the flowers" Said Marluxia.

"Oh…alright then, that makes sense" Sora said. "And I see you're both still nobodies."

"Our heartless are proving a bit hard to find" Marluxia said. "Not all of us are lucky enough to have them just show up randomly when you turn around."

Axel grinned.

"Well I'm sure you'll find them some day, hey maybe we can even help" Kairi said.

"Since when did we help the Organization?" Riku asked.

"They're not with the Organization anymore, and besides they helped Axel and Ienzo right?" Kairi said.

"Yeah, thanks a lot" Riku said sarcastically.

"Don't be like that" Kairi said raising an eyebrow. "I know you haven't gotten along well in the past, but maybe its time we put that behind us? After all, they're only trying to get their hearts back, and hey, if we helped, maybe they can become allies once."

"That's a bit too optimistic don't you think?" Demyx said.

"Well isn't that the reason we've been having problems with them in the past?" Kairi asked. "If we told them we actually _knew_ how to get them their hearts back, they would no longer have a reason to fight us, and might even help us fight the heartless."

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea actually" Sora said.

"I knew you'd say that, and I don't know about the other nobodies but I'm pretty sure it won't work on Xemnas" Riku said.

"Why not?" Kairi asked.

"Because his heartless is the biggest badest heartless that's ever lived, end of story" Riku said. "He wouldn't help us if he got all the hearts in the world, INCLUDING Kingdom Hearts."

"I agree with Riku on this one, Xehanort can be very stubborn. Especially if he's already working on this new heartless… he's not going to give that up very soon" Ienzo said.

"Then let's tell the rest of them and maybe they'd want to start a rebellion?" Sora suggested. "Surely they can't all be his biggest fans?"

"Meaning everyone but Saïx" Axel said. "That old dog would probably follow him to the end of the world…and I mean like if the world they were on like literally exploded or something, not the place the end of the world…although he'd probably follow him there too now that I think of it".

"Do you think Xemnas knows about Xehanort's plans?" Kairi asked.

"Probably" Riku said.

A crashing sound was heard, and the party turned around to see Kyuubi back in his demon-form, having crushed the last pod.

"Well it's been fun listening to your boring conversations guys, but I really gotta go. Since two of the other bijuu got turned into heartless, someone's gotta round them up. Ciao" he said, before he jumped out of the hole he'd made in the roof and took of.

"He could not do that WITHOUT breaking m machine could he?" Vexen sighed. "Those things weren't easy to make."

He looked over at the others in the room.

"You know… We should probably go too, I'm sure Kairi and Ienzo's mom is anxious to know how it went" Sora said.

"And I just remembered I forgot to feed the meat-eating plants, they get cranky if I don't" Marluxia said.

"I promised to play a game of poker with some elves down in Spargus, and I really don't want to keep them waiting" Luxord said.

"I gotta go to the store to buy toilet paper" Relena said.

With that, everyone left, leaving only Vexen behind, well Vexen and GLaDOS.

"You can't help me fix the machine can you?" the polar fox said.

"I can offer you food while you work" GLaDOS said and a mechanical arm came out of a hatch in the wall carrying a cake.

"I didn't think so" Vexen said.

* * *

**Usagi: Finally! Axel and Zexion got their hearts back and Vexen got some work ahead of him.**

**Vexen: you're evil.**

**Usagi: also a new character was introduced. Another demon, so I guess then you can guess he's from Disgaea…**

**Mao: It's not like I haven't been here before… You just never let me appear in the fic before now! **

**Usagi: oh sorry about that. Mao is from the newest game in the Disgaea-series, Disgaea 3: Absense of Justice. Like Laharl he started out the game as the son of an Overlord (The Dean Overlord Orochi mentioned…ironically enough…whoever said the Overlord himself was the mastermind huh?) he's also an honour student of Maritsu Evil Academy…which means he never shows up in class (making people wonder why they made the school in the first place, when they don't even expect the students to show up) and spends his time doing crazy experiments on live…things… Right now he's set his eyes on the heartless. Ever since before the Netherworld was taken, probably since the heartless showed up, he'd made himself quite an army. You might notice that he's not a heartless…if you didn't; well I just told you. **

**Normally any creature who stays at the end of the world would turn into one, but somehow Mao doesn't…**

**Mao: Common sense doesn't work on me!**

**Almaz: this isn't really a question of common sense, it's like breaking the laws of nature…**

**Mao: and living without a heart doesn't?**

**Almaz: ah…good point….**

**Usagi: Mao has his own method of making sure he doesn't turn into a heartless. How? I'll explain that later. **

**Other overlords were mentioned briefly here too, so I might as well tell you something about them:  
Overlord Krichevskoy is as mentioned Laharl's father, he died before the start of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.**

**Overlord Zetta is from Makai Kingdom (and also had a cameo in Disgaea 2). He describes himself as a "Badass Freaking Overlord" and yeah…he did get turned into a book.**

**Overlord Zenon is from Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories. The rumoured god of overlords killed 100 overlords in the past. Gone missing….if you've played Disgaea 2 you'd know what happened. If not, well I had a Disgaea 2-arc planned out in LiD3.**

**Zakura: still you start with Disgaea 3.**

**Usagi: sure. Why not?**

**Priere…I don't know that much about her to be honest…I would say its because I haven't played her game (La Pucelle) but I haven't played Makai Kingdom, Disgaea 2 or 3 either XD What I do know is that she started out as human, but appear in cameos in Disgaea as a demon overlord XD She's said to be dead here since there's little chance of her ever showing up.**

**Then there's the Dean Overlord of Maritsu Evil Academy. I'm not sure if he has a name or if that IS his name… but he's Mao's father, HUGE, and steps on Mao's toys a lot.**

**Mao: He'll pay for that. YOU HEAR THAT DAD? YOU'LL PAY FOR RUINING MY SLAYSTATION PORTABLE!**

**Almaz: all this for a game console (facepalm)**

**Zakura: who is that guy?**

**Usagi: what guy?**

**Zakura: (points at Almaz)**

**Usagi: …. Friend of Mao?**

**Mao: I don't need friends!**

**Almaz: Never mind me. I'm not important.**

**Usagi: Not yet you're not. Please review people! **


	20. Monkey Business

**Usagi: the following chapter is a bit short but I just wanted to get it done…**

**We're entering the next story-arc of this fanfiction which is mostly based on the Jungle Book…but not the Jungle book you might think. But rather an anime-version of it…**

**When I was a kid I used to be watching a TV-series about Mowgli and his wolf-family in the jungle, only recently I found out that was actually an anime called Jungle Shounen Mowgli, I rewatched the whole series and eventually decided to put it in LiD (So that I could use the wolf-designs I made for Riku and Sora XD) **

**The reason I chose the anime-version and not the Disney-version is a simple one: I didn't like the Disney-film…. The wolves are in it for about 10 minutes and basically what you see in the Disney-film is just a very small part of the original Jungle Book (the book… never read that but still).**

**The anime focuses more on well…everything else, most of it takes place in the jungle where Mowgli is NOT trying to find a human family to settle with, but rather just try to live as a wild human, preferably away from other humans. **

**DoH won't go through the whole story obviously, but as usual I'll tell you more about the characters as they show up.**

**The Jungle Book will be the first world not present in KH which isn't based on a video game surprisingly (as previously I've had Jak and Daxter and Disgaea, both are Playstation-games) so to make up for that, it'll also include references to a completely different story XD**

**The intro in this chapter is based on a game, as with Disgaea and Jak it's a game-series made for the Playstation (parts of it is out on both PS2 and PSP) but I won't say what it is just yet XD You just have to guess…and I'm pretty sure anyone who's familiar with the fandom will find out quite easily (As usual Rilaveke is not allowed to answer).  
If you can't figure it out you'll find out sooner or later, as one of the characters who show up here will be important for the Jungle Book plot. **

**So with no further ado, here's the next chapter.**

**Zakura: wow, that's a handful! I didn't get to do any comments in the AN (pouts)

* * *

  
**

**Chapter 20**

**Monkey Business

* * *

  
**

Meanwhile at a completely random location which probably will be important later, a press conference was held at a Zoo, where a whole lot of journalists had shown up to talk to a professor about an important invention he'd made.

"Professor is it true that your invention has the capacity to make anyone who uses it even smarter?" one of the journalists asked.

"Indeed. In fact when it's finished it will be able to make even a monkey smarter than your average human" the professor said. "I already have a prototype waiting in the next room, but it hasn't been fully tested yet."

After the interview the professor came out of the large hall, where he met one of the zoo-keepers.

"Great interview professor, I must say I'm quite exited about seeing that Peak Point Helmet of yours in action" the zoo-keeper said.

"Oh you will soon, but I'd rather not risk any danger for whoever is testing it, we don't know how the prototype will affect the user's mental health yet" the professor said.

"Why? Do you think the monkeys will go insane and take over the world or something?" the zoo-keeper asked, laughing.

Before the professor had time to answer another zoo-keeper suddenly ran into the building.

"Hey Charlie, something wrong?" the first zoo-keeper asked.

"Well yeah, it seems little Kohta's gotten out again" Charlie replied. "If only that chimp wasn't so popular I would have gotten him transferred to another Zoo, he's a real escape artist."

"He'll probably show up sooner or later. He might even be looking for some kids to play with" the Professor said laughing. "If I hadn't known better I'd say that ape could have been someone's pe…"

"Is something wrong professor?" the first zoo-keeper asked.

"Have any of you seen the Peak Point Helmet? I left it right here" the professor said, and pointed at the table.

"I haven't seen it" Charlie said. "You don't suppose Kohta's taken it?"

The three men started laughing.

"Yeah sure. I probably left it back at the lab or something" the professor said.

They walked out the door, only to see their exit was blocked, there was suddenly a large group of Powerwild and Bouncywild heartless standing in front of them.

"What in the world are those things?" the professor asked. Then the monkey heartless attacked.

--

To say Nanami was glad to see her son was quite an understatement.

Since the time the gummi ship landed and for five minutes straight she'd simply refused to let him go.

"I can't believe it, both my babies are back with me, oh if only your father was alive to see this" she said probably for the fifth time.

"Yeah that's nice mom, now could you please let go, I can't breathe" Ienzo said.

"She got really happy" Sora said.

"I just hope now she'll let me out of sight a bit more often" Kairi said quietly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to finally get to know my real mother but she can be a bit…overprotective."

"I heard that" Nanami said.

"You can't really blame her for being overprotective, she thought she'd lost her whole family and suddenly both her children are back with her safe and sound" Aerith said.

"Yeah but for how long?" Ienzo sighed as his mother finally let go.

The gang had gathered in Merlin's house, so (to Ienzo's annoyance) the entire Radiant Garden Restoration Committee were there as well, but at least Cid didn't seem to be paying attention to the motherly love.

"Er…Cid. What are you doing?" Sora asked. He looked over at the man who seemed to be fiddling with a cat, with wires sticking out of it.

"I bought this old robot on a yard sale. It was quite cheap because it was broken. So I'm trying to fix it" Cid said. "I'm hoping this thing could help me with some work around here."

"Well good luck with that" Sora said.

The door opened once more, and King Mickey came in.

"I thought I'd find you in here" he said.

"How is it going Mickey?" Kairi asked.

"Not good I'm afraid" Mickey sighed. "The heartless are on the move again."

"Tell us something we don't know" Riku sighed.

"It turns out the Netherworld wasn't the only world Xehanort laid his eyes on, two other starts have gone out during the last week only" the mouse explained, as he pulled out a world map, and wrapped it out over some of Merlin's books. "We've been trying to track their movement, normally the heartless appear to become more organized just before the heart of the world is taken, as they try to find out where it is… we've found one world where that appears to be happening now, on this world." He pointed at one of the planets on the map. "Seems to be in a jungle of sorts. You might want to have a talk with the local wildlife."

"Wildlife? Aren't there any human villages around?" Riku asked.

"Technically yes, but the heartless appears to be gathering in the jungle, we think that's where the heart is" Mickey said, just as a cricket jumped out of one of his pocket.

"I've done some research on the jungle" the cricket, Jiminy said. "I think you'll get the best result if you talk to the wolves of the jungle. There's hardly anything going on in the jungle that they don't know about".

"So we'll be wolves this time then" Sora said. "Great. That can't be much more difficult than a lion."

"I'll take anything that isn't a cat" Ienzo said.

"Oh, wait a minute now! You're all planning to go of to other worlds again?" Nanami said.

"Aw come on Mom, we just got back from the Netherworld, what could be more dangerous than that?" Kairi asked.

"Well I guess you'll run of even if I told you not to" Nanami sighed. "But if something happens to my daughter I'll hold _you_ responsible" she said, with a warning glare at Sora.

"Why…Don't worry, she'll be fine" Sora said. "Now who wants to go save another world?"

--

Not long after the gummi ship took of into space once more.

"Do you guys want to practice transforming into wolves in private this time around or shall we see what crazy things you'll turn into this time?" Kairi asked.

"Hah, very funny. I'm sure we've gotten the hang of it by now" Sora said, taking the keyblade out.

There was a flash of light and suddenly in his place, stood a dog…. A Chihuahua to be exact.

"I'm sorry to say it Sora but that is not a wolf" Riku said chuckling.

"At least dogs and wolves are closely related" Sora muttered. "More so than a demon and a tazmanian devil…"

"Or a lion. Let me show you how it's done" Riku said, after another flash of light he was a Papillion.

"Do you need any help?" Ienzo asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nah, that's fine. We've got the family right… if we only turned into huskies it would be fine" Sora said as he tried to lift the keyblade with his teeth.

There was another flash of light, and both the miniature dogs were gone, replaced by one brown and one silver-coated wolf.

"See? Told you we'd figure it out" Sora said grinning.

"Great, now we'll all be fuzzballs…hey, what is that?" Axel asked, as he came too look out of the window. "Hey guys, check this out!"

"What's that thing?" Sora asked, putting his paws up on the dashboard to look out the window. "Is that….a turtle?"

And sure enough… An enormous turtle was swimming through space just over Radiant Garden.

The heroes noticed it had something on its back, and as it got closer they could see what it was.

Four huge elephants were sitting on his back, and on THEIR backs…

"If I didn't know any better I'd say there's a flat planet on their backs" Riku said.

"This is just ridiculous" Ienzo said. "There is no way a turtle and four elephants would be carrying a whole world around. Must be some kind of mirage or something."

"That's the strangest mirage I've ever seen." Kairi said chuckling. "Wanna check it out?"

"Go check out a planet on the back of an elephant….no" Riku said. "Whatever that is it must be a very wacky place. And we've got a job to do after all."

"That's right, let's go find that wolf-pack" Sora said, tail wagging.

* * *

**Usagi: yay wolfies!**

**Zakura: D:**

**Usagi: hey relax…I've yet to see a wolf in our neighbourhood (foxes on the other hand…)**

**Zakura: I don't worry about the foxes, Pumba can probably handle them.**

**Usagi: the cat next door?**

**Zakura: cats are though. **

**Usagi: can't disagree to that. Well that was this chapter, do review.**

**Air cookie for anyone who knows what game the intro is based on.  
Kohta is a character from that game, but he doesn't go by that name normally... Air Cola to anyone who can figure out why I chose to call him that. XD  
**


	21. Seeonee Jungle

**Usagi: Quick update! WHOOO!**

**No one's guessed the secret reference in the last chapter yet but there are also only two reviews yet so I let that slide.**

**Zakura: also no one seems to have noticed the other references you put in which you didn't even mention.**

**Usagi: yeah… I was wondering if anyone would notice that… **

**Cid was working on a cat-robot in the last chapter, and if you're familiar with Final Fantasy VII, well you might be able to guess what that is. (Even if DoH has nothing to do with FFVII, I haven't even played it darnit…but like the original KH I decided to toss in an extra character from the game) **

**Also the turtle swimming by was the Great A'Tuin from Terry Pratchet's discworld-series. It has been mentioned before and yes Riku, it is indeed a wacky place… I don't plan on having it visited in the fic any time soon though….its a bit…too wacky.**

**Sora: too wacky? Is anything TOO wacky for Usagi? **

**Usagi: walking luggage is. **

**Anywayz, this is the chapter that marks the beginning of the Jungle Book Arc.**

**I set this very late in the series, so Shere Khan the tiger is no longer around….or well his skin is . **

**Mowgli's stepmother Luri is now the leader of the pack, the ex-leader Akela is her advisor. Lala, who shows up in this chapter is Akela's granddaughter, and mate to Mowgli's step-brother Sura. More characters will be introduced in this chapter:

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**Chapter 21**

**Seeonee Jungle

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**

The Seeonee jungle wasn't always a peaceful place, and things definitely weren't looking up at the moment.

A red female wolf ran trhough the trees, chased by several monkey heartless.

"Stop chasing me! I haven't done you anything" the wolf snapped at the heartless.

The heartless ignored her; a few bouncywilds paused, only to fire a rain of small rocks at her.

The wolf dodged and kept running.

"What has gotten into these monkeys?" she wondered.

It didn't take long before she arrived at an obstacle.

A river stretched out in front of her; to make matters worse it was full of alligators.

"Oh no." the female said. "Help! I need help!"

One of the Powerwilds suddenly found itself getting grabbed by the tail and tossed into a nearby tree, as a black and white male wolf showed up.

"Lala! Are you alright?" the male asked.

"Sura, watch out!" Lala shouted back at him.

The male wolf, Sura turned around just in time to see three more monkeys fly at him from behind; he swiftly grabbed one by his teeth and tossed him at the others.

"Where do these things come from? I've never seen monkeys like these" he said.

Meanwhile, not too far away some newcomers in the jungle had heard the call as well.

"Wow this is weird. I still can't hear anything but a wolf howling yet my brain somehow translates that to a girl shouting for help" Riku said.

"Welcome to the animal world" Sora said. "We should help, it might be the heartless."

All our heroes had transformed into forms more fitting for the jungle environment…well Axel, Demyx and Samehada were still in their original animal forms as they figured an ottsel and a beaver wouldn't look too misplaced…and they also found out that it wasn't that easy to transform a demon fish.

"If I only I was able to shape-shift like Isonade-sama" Samehada sighed, as he clang on to Demyx' back. "It's not like he never tried to teach me, why didn't I listen to him? I'm the worst sidekick ever!"

"Stop moping, it won't help anyone" Riku said. "Why are you hanging on Demyx' back anyway? You're a fish, and there's a perfectly good river right there."

"Besides you're too heavy, I can hardly move" Demyx said.

Sure enough the fish and the beaver were about the same size.

"There's too many crocodiles in the river" Samehada pouted. "And yeah, I know what you're gonna say, I'm a demon, I should handle some measly alligators, but they're HUGE, I'm just one tiny demon fish."

"Half a meter long fishes are often considered tiny yes" Sora said.

Riku sighed; he picked up the fish with his new fangs and threw him over at his back. "You'd better hold on, I'm not stopping if you fall of" he said.

The gang then ran by the river until they got to the place where Lala and Sura were fighting the heartless.

"I hate being right sometimes" Sora said, and summoned the keyblade into his fangs.

Thankfully the heartless were only of the lower classes, and three keybladers proved too much for them so pretty soon the remaining ones scattered.

"Are you okay?" Sora asked, after dissolving his keyblade.

"Yeah. We probably could have handled them ourselves later, but thanks anyway" Lala said.

"Be nice Lala, they're just trying to help" Sura said. "My name is Sura by the way, and this is Lala."

"And who are you? You're not members of our pack I can tell that much" Lala said and narrowed her eyes at the heroes.

"We're not from around here. We came here hunting those heartless" Sora said. "I'm Sora; this is Kairi, Axel, Ienzo, Demyx, Riku and…Samehada."

"What _is_ that?" Lala asked, now looking at Samehada.

"He's a magic fish, be nice to him and maybe he'll grant you a wish" Riku said. The demon fish rolled his eyes.

"Yeah right" Lala said.

"Heartless, is that what those monkeys are called?" Sura asked. "They only just started showing up stirring trouble. You're probably welcome to help us fight them, but we have to talk to our leader first."  
Lala and Sura lead the keybladers and their friends to a large cliff, on which a few wolves were resting and play fighting.

On a higher ground a white female with brown ears rested on a tiger hide, next to her sat an elderly grey male.

The female looked up curiously as the heroes approached.

"Mother, Akela, we found these strangers by the river, they said they could help us fight those monsters who've been terrorizing the jungle" Sura said.

"Good, we'll probably need all the help we can get" the female said and sat up. "My name is Luri, I'm the leader of the pack. This is my advisor Akela. Who are you?"

Sora introduced everyone again and Riku once again explained that Samehada was a magic fish but wasn't believed; he then said he was a demon fish but no one believed that either so he gave up.

"It sounds like you're familiar with these monsters already, have they been bothering your homes too?" Luri asked.

"You could say that" Sora said. "They are called heartless, and they can in fact be very dangerous if you're not careful, even if you get too close to them you can turn into one yourself."

"Its true!" one other wolf said, he'd been sitting close to the rock listening, but now he came up to Luri. "I told you my brother wasn't killed by them, he turned into one!"

"That's still a pretty far-fetched story… are you sure he wasn't just killed when you weren't watching?" Lala said.

"They do change, trust me" Sora said. "I've seen it happen several times. The heartless are created from the darkness in people and animal's hearts. They desperately seek out more hearts and if they get yours you turn into one."

"That's…." Lala seemed at loss for words.

"We've seen different kinds of these yellow-eyed things around the jungle, are they all heartless?" Sura asked.

"Yes, there's many different kinds" Sora said. "The blue monkeys down at the river are called Powerwild, the Brown ones are Bouncywild, and the ones with the masks are called Shaman."

"What about the white monkey?" the wolf who'd been speaking up previously asked.

"White? There are no white monkey heartless" Sora said. "At least I don't think so" he added looking at Ienzo, who just shook his head. "Never heard of one" he said.

"Well I've seen one" the wolf said. "He came with the others when my brother was turned. Everyone else just said I was crazy when I told them he'd turned into one." He added and glared at Luri.

"Sorry" Luri sighed. "But Lala was right, it was pretty hard to believe but I believe you know, if Sora says its so too".

"You should call the pack together, they need to know to be careful" Akela said.

"Hm, you're probably right. Sura?" Luri said.

"I'm on it mother" Sura said and left, soon after he reappeared on the very top of the cliff, where he then started howling to get the pack together.

It didn't take long before wolves started coming in, but a little longer before Luri decided enough had arrived.

Lala left temporarily, she and Sura came back with two small pups by their tail.

"Are we all here?" Luri asked, looking over the wolf pack. "Where's Mowgli?"

"Sorry I'm late mother" another voice said.

A human boy with a red panda hanging on his shoulder came running, followed by a black panther. "Sorry I'm late" he said.

"A human?" Sora said surprised.

"He's my son" Luri said smiling. "This is Mowgli. My mate protected him from the tiger Shere Khan when he was a baby and he's been with us ever since. Please don't shun him because of his looks, he may be a man cub but he's a wolf at heart."

"Don't worry, I once met a man who was raised by gorillas, I don't mind" Sora said. "Nice to meet you Mowgli."

After explaining about the heartless one more time, the heroes were introduced to the wolf pack and their friends.

They learned that Luri had three sons, her biologic sons were Sura and Akkru, a brown and white male with similar markings to his brother, and of course Mowgli the man-cub.

Akkru had a mate called Mackey, she was a yellow and white she-wolf.

The panther was Bagheera, he had appointed himself one of Mowgli's "teachers", having been raised among humans he was more familiar with how they hunted than anyone.

Eventually they met another one of his teachers too, a bear called Baloo, like Mowgli one that the wolves had been caring for since his mother died.

The red panda was Kichi, an orphan that Mowgli saved from ending as food for…

Bacchus, a fat wolf who had some problems hunting, but he was kept around because he was a good pup-sitter.

"What is this? A wolf-pack or a daycare center?" Riku asked quietly.

"Careful, wolves have extra good hearing you know" Kairi replied.

"We can't very well turn our backs on those in need can we?" Luri asked smiling.

"I can understand why, who can say no when a child is in need? Your species or not" Kairi said, as she was playing with one of Sura and Lala's pups. "Hey Sora, do you want to have kids one day?"

"It's a bit early to be thinking about that isn't it?" Sora asked laughing nervously.

"If mom ever heard you as much as mention the words Sora and kids in the same sentence she'll ground you for life to prevent you from ever seeing him again" Ienzo said.

"It's only a few months left till I'm 18, then she can't say anything" Kairi said stubbornly.

"So? I'm 27 and she would hardly let ME out of her sight" Ienzo sighed.

"Hey, these heartless, what do they want with us? Why can't they leave us alone?" Kichi the red panda asked.

"It's in their nature" Sora said shrugging. "They go of constantly searching for hearts, and then eventually they'll go after the heart of the world, if they get that…well."

"How do we stop them?" Mowgli asked.

"Getting rid of the heartless isn't easy" Riku said. "They go wherever there are people with darkness in their heart….and EVERYONE has some darkness in them, no matter how kind they are. But we can protect the world, if we found the heart of the world, Sora and I could lock it with these." He summoned the Road to dawn keyblade showing it to the other wolves. "This is probably the most effective weapon against the heartless, they fear it. But not everyone can carry it."

"How does the heart look like?" Kichi asked.

"We don't really know it tends to look different from place to place" Sora said. "But there's usually some kind of big keyhole close to it."

"What's a keyhole?" Kichi asked again.

"Oh…well…its kind of a whole with a triangle underneath…we'll know when we see it. Don't worry" Sora said.

"We'll keep our eyes open" Luri said.

Someone else was keeping their eyes open too.

Unbeknownst of the wolf pack they were being watched by a small group of power and Bouncywild heartless. One of them, the one that appeared to be the leader, had a rather unusual appearance.

Mainly it looked like a Powerwild, but instead of blue, his fur was white and bright blue, with a blue patch right on the tail and it seemed to be following the conversation with great interest.

_The heart of the world you say? _It thought. _Maybe it's worth checking it out._

--

"How is it going little dude?"

Orochi sighed and turned around to look at the wolf.

He was no longer hiding his face under a hood it seemed, but instead revealed a pretty normal face, two yellow eyes and long brown hair. His shoes were now pink, even if Xigbar was pretty sure they had been black the last time he saw him.

"It would be going a lot better if you stopped asking every other minute." Orochi said.

"Geez, Sorry" Xigbar said, and gazed on the machine that the demon was working on. "What exactly are you going to do once it's done? How do we know it will work?"

"You could always volunteer to test it" Orochi said. "If we're lucky, you'll die and I won't have to be bothered by you anymore."

"As if. You know Xehanort was a fan of animal testing when we worked together in the past" Xigbar said.

"Gee, I don't know. Why don't you ask HIM?" Orochi said.

Xigbar sighed, he knew when he wasn't wanted, yet the snake had a point, he made his way to Xemnas' office.

When he came in he found Xemnas, still an ottsel, sitting on a desk, Xehanort was using the chair and next to the table Orochi was doing paper work…wait a minute?

Xigbar took a second look to make sure he saw right, it really looked like Orochi alright, except he seemed to have gotten a haircut and a costume change.

Instead of the long hair he had shorter and seemingly darker hair too, and he wore a dark blue top hat, a blue tie and blue shoes.

"Did you need anything nr 2?" Xemnas asked.

Xigbar looked away from the snake-person shaking his head.

"Well yeah. I was just wondering when the machine is done, who were you planning to use to test it?" he asked.

"I'm sure we'll think of something" Xemnas said. "The easiest way would probably to get some kind of animal to test it..." (Orochi nervously looked up from his papers) "Just a shame so few animals get nobodies."

Orochi sighed in relief.

"I think I know one, at least I heard some rumours from my heartless vassals" Xehanort said calmly. "I already sent Cloak out to investigate; we should know soon if the observations were right."

Xigbar was about to ask who this "Cloak" was, but threw it of assuming it was one of the heartless, whom Xehanort had decided to name for some reason… well they were easier to tell apart like that.

"Okay then, good luck with that" he said and left.

* * *

**Usagi: Orochi is turning into quite a confusing character…**

**Xigbar: gee, you don't say?**

**Usagi: well I could tell you why that is, since I've already left you with the yet to be solved mystery of the monkey-game. **

**Each bijuu has a human form, Orochi…since he has eight heads, have eight separate human forms, and he can turn into all eight at once, thus splitting himself over more areas.**

**All of the forms look different, you can see them on my Deviantart-account, under "8 little Orochis"**

**So far we've seen three:**

**Cloak: the guy with one eye and a cloak covering his face, apparently the only normal-dressed one, though no one knows what he wears under the hood. Wears black shoes. **

**Hairy: the one with the long hair and pink shoes. **

**Mr. Yamata: the business-looking guy with the top hat and blue shoes.**

**Apart from those there's also:**

**Dumbledude: No hair, wears a blue wizard hat with stars on it, and no shoes.**

**Ponyman: long hair in a ponytail, and brown shoes.**

**Pinky Viking Dude: The only one not wearing a brown cloak, his is…you guessed it, pink. He also wears a Viking helmet, has a scar over his left eye and bright blue shoes.**

**Bunny: Has short hair and a short beard, and he wears fake white rabbit-ears. Purple shoes.**

**And Ribbonmort: A bald guy wearing green shoes and has a pink ribbon on his tail. **

**Truly a weird group indeed…and yes Orochi has 8 personalities, still working on those though XD **

**Soukou: and they say I'm weird… **

**Usagi: all bijuus are weird in one way or another it seems… **

**Now what are the Organization XIII up too? Nothing good obviously… **

**Please review, and the question about the monkeys in the last chapter is still up XD**

**The white Powerwild is based of a VERY important character from that series XD**

**Zakura: in other words, you're looking for a series with a white monkey among the main characters?**

**Usagi: maybe… **


	22. Follow the White Monkey

**Usagi: Happy holidays everyone! And if you're not celebrating anything in particular at the moment then….happy December 27! **

**Zakura: what's so special about December 27?**

**Usagi: it's when Chapter 22 of Darkness of the Heart comes out. WOOT!**

**Zakura: geez….**

**Usagi: Still none of the same reviewers since last time haven't figured out which game Kotha is from…so I take it not too many of you have played Ape Escape.**

**Zakura: There's no character named Kotha in the Ape Escape games… at least not as far as I've seen.**

**Usagi: me neither. Kotha appears in the anime, as a small pet monkey of one of the main characters… until he finds a Peak Point helmet and becomes, drum roll: Specter. **

**Zakura: the evil monkey set to take over the world…wow what a plot.**

**Usagi: The background-story presented in DoH is pretty much based on the original game, the only anime-reference I've got is the monkey's name… also since Specter is an albino ape (red-eyed white, whether the red eyes are normal for him or not I'm not sure, as Kotha in the anime had blue eyes curiously enough), I made the heartless white too XD **

**Zakura: who cares what eye colour he's got? **

**Usagi: yeah, you're right. Enjoy Chapter 22:**

**With characters inspired from The Adventure of the Jungle Book, Ape Escape and a title inspired by….Alice in Wonderland…. Yeah.

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**Chapter 22**

**Follow the White Monkey

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**

"Well this is where I saw them."

"I don't see what the point in coming here is, why would they come to this exact location again?"

"Well it's worth a try, unless you have any other bright ideas Riku".

The heroes had followed the wolf who'd claimed to have seen the white monkey heartless to a clearing. Although noticeably there were no heartless there when they arrived.

"Why are we looking for a bleached monkey anyway?" Riku asked.

"I somehow doubt a heartless would dye its fur for any reason. There could be something special about it, you know, like the demon heartless. They don't look like any familiar classes either" Sora said.

"Yeah, except there ARE monkey type heartless, the demons just looked like themselves" Riku said. "So if there's a white Powerwild or Bouncywild, what difference does it make?"

"Dunno, let's check it out!" Sora said grinning, before he ran of into the woods. "Race you there."

"Oh, OH! You're so dead!" Riku said and ran after him.

"Race where?" the wolf asked.

"To find the white monkey I guess" Kairi said, laughing. "We'd better follow, or they'll be far of before we know it."  
But Sora and Riku didn't continue running, just as they came within the cover of the trees, Riku started sniffing around.

"Wolf-noses are pretty good but what does a monkey-heartless smell like?" he asked.

"Bananas?" Sora joked. "Darkness and bananas."

"What do bananas smell like?"

Sora gazed at his best friend as the others came into the forest.

"There's some Powerwild heartless in that direction" Ienzo said. "Maybe a few Bouncywilds as well."

"Show-off" Riku said. "Fine, let's go check it out then".

The gang followed Zexion through the jungle, until they arrived at a village…or a ghost town would be more precise.

"What happened here?" Kairi asked.

"There used to be a human village here, not too long ago" the wolf who had been their guide said. "But they were chased of. Were beginning to cause problems."

"Don't you like humans in the jungle?" Sora asked.

"Oh normally we don't mind as long as they don't bother us" the wolf said. "Take Mowgli for once, he's okay, even if some of the wolves are a bit vary of him. He even went to visit them a few times. Guess some of us were hoping that he would stay there, not because he's not wanted but its better for him to be with his own kind you know?  
But then some stuff happened, Mowgli was asked to kill a tiger that had been bothering the humans for some time, I think he wanted to prove himself for one of the human hunters or something. The tiger had been bothering us too so his friends and family helped him out.

The kid made it, but the human saw him working with us wolves and…I think they somehow figured he was some kind of demon."

"Those silly humans" Samehada laughed, he was sitting on Kairi's back right now.

"So they threw him out. As well as the human family that had helped him settle in" the wolf continued. "They saved the human family, and with the help of several jungle animals they chased the humans away, to prevent them from going to get revenge on the wolf-pack or something, thinking we were monsters."

"That's awful" Kairi said.

"Hey speaking of tigers" Axel said. "That tiger skin back at the meeting rock…"

"It's the same one, Shere Khan" the wolf said. "Luri figured that it belonged there."

"Ukki!"

The strange sound made all the gang turn around at once and stared at something on top of one of the houses.

There were about 2-4 monkeys sitting there, most of them Powerwilds, one Bouncywild and…sure enough one brightly coloured Powerwild.

While the normal powerwilds were blue and dark almost black blue, this one's main coat was pure white, the arms and feet were bright blue, and it also had a bright blue spot on its tail.

"So this is the rumoured albino Powerwild" Riku said.

"Albino? Shouldn't they have red eyes?" Sora asked.

"All heartless have yellow eyes Sora. But I guess now we'll find out if miscoloured heartless are stronger than normal ones" Riku said, he summoned the Road to Dawn in his fangs, and jumped up on the rooftop.

Most of the monkeys scattered the moment Riku came up, but the white Powerwild merely jumped into the air to dodge Riku's attack, and landed behind him.

"Okay, so he's fast" Riku muttered, he charged at the monkey again, but forgot he was on a roof so when the Powerwild dodged again he fell of the edge of the rooftop.

"You just got outsmarted by a heartless" Sora said.

"Of….quiet you" Riku said.

The albino Powerwild was still on the roof looking down, his friends watching from a safe distance.

"Remarkable. I never thought a common heartless could figure out such a strategy. It knows that in our current bodies we can't move about as freely on the roof as he can" Ienzo said.

"Impressed at our enemies are you?" Riku asked.

"I'm just saying you're not stopping any monkey like that" Ienzo said shrugging.

"We'll see about that" Riku said and got onto his feet again. Using the keyblade as support he crawled up on two feet, or at least tried to, supporting his body with his left front paw, pointing the right at the Powerwild.

"Dark blast!" he shouted, hurling a ball of dark energy towards the heartless. Shocked at the unnatural attack the Albino Powerwild didn't have much time to get away, and the attack hit its tail.

"Hah! I may not be able to use the dark portals but at least I can still do THAT!" Riku said.

"How did you learn that?" the jungle-wolf asked.

"Er…. Years of training?" Riku asked. "Don't try this at home".

"I think you pissed him of" Axel said.

Sure enough once Riku had his back turned to speak to the wolf, the white Powerwild bounced down from the roof and tackled him.

Sora moved fast and tackled the monkey in return (creating a pile of wolf-monkey-wolf) before grabbing its tail and holding it stuck.

"Not so though when you're on the ground are you" Riku said.

The monkey screeched, turned and scratched Sora's eye, making him drop its tail in surprise, pounced Riku in the face and jumped back on the roof.

"That was a bit embarrassing" Sora said, rubbing his eye.

"A bit?" Riku asked, his nose was bleeding.

"Should I get help?" the wolf asked.

"Yeah, you do that" Sora said, as soon as the other wolf had left the village, he turned to Riku again. "I've got a plan."

--

"Oh yeah this is more like it!" Sora said just a few minutes later, as both he and Riku soared through trees chasing after the small group of monkey heartless.

"No offence to the wolves but they don't know what they're missing" Riku said.

As you probably should have guessed by now they had shifted from their wolf-forms, after failing at catching the albino Powerwild they had transformed into a pair of monkeys, or truth to be said first they had become chinchillas before finally doing it right at the second try.

As soon as they had changed, the heartless ran of once the odds were no longer at their side, so Sora and Riku were in the trees chasing them, while Kairi and Ienzo (still being wolves) followed on the ground.

Samehada had been dropped in a nearby river, and since the heartless had so far been considerate enough to run by the river's shore, the demon fish was swimming alongside, just waiting for one of the heartless to make a mistake and fall in. A couple of times he jumped up in the air spitting a ball of water at the heartless.

Demyx was in the water as well, he'd figured that in his beaver-form he was better at swimming than at running. He was still unable to attack since he didn't have time to summon his guitar and swim at the same time.

Axel was running far behind the others, occasionally he tried to climb the trees only to fall back down.

"These monkeys are fast" Riku said.

"Well they probably have more training in this than us" Sora reminded him. "I've been a lot of different animals but never a monkey."  
The albino Powerwild snarled and stopped, the only Bouncywild of the group stopped as well.

"Ready to give up monkey-boy?" Riku asked.

It was impossible to tell whether the Powerwild was smiling or not, although Sora got a nasty feeling it was, especially since immediately he heard a growling sound from bellow.

Out of the jungle came several wolf-like heartless, they looked similar to the rapid dogs only larger, also a pair of shamans riding massive living bone heartless materialized as well, surrounding the party on the ground.

Up in the trees, more powerwilds, bouncywilds and shamans showed up.

"Still don't think a strangely coloured heartless is any special?" Sora asked.

"Fine, I take it back. This creature is smart! At least for a heartless" Riku said.

"You guys can handle the heartless in the trees, we'll take the ones on the ground" Kairi said.  
"There's too many of them! And those Living bones are no pushovers" Sora said.

Riku sniffed the air. "Do you smell something burning?" he asked.

Samehada bounced out of the water again.

"Er…guys? I think you should get down from the trees" he said.

"What do you…oh snap!" Sora said, before both he and Riku jumped right into the water, followed by Kairi and Ienzo before the trees they had previously been in suddenly became engulfed by an unusually fast-spreading fire.

Samehada dived under water, coming back up just a few seconds later and put out the fire with a massive beam of water.

As the fire was gone, so were the heartless, only one remaining was a little red ottsel.

"It's like I've always said, the best way to get rid of a heartless is with a good old fire, got it memorized?" Axel said.

"Do you mind trying NOT to kill us at the same time next time?" Riku said.

"Fine, I can let the heartless get you the next time" the little ottsel said shrugging. "If there's any more of them that is."

"I think you got most of them" Sora said as he swam ashore. "But I don't think its over yet, if that white Powerwild is as smart as it seems to be, he probably would have noticed the fire and got away in time."

"It's pretty obvious that Albino Powerwild must be their leader" Ienzo said. "The big question is; is it working for someone?"

"What are you talking about? Of course it would be working for Xehanort" Riku said.

"I'm not so sure. Why would Xehanort be sending heartless to bother some wolf-pack? These heartless didn't even seem to be looking for the heart, it was like they were only in it for fun" Ienzo said. "Not all heartless work for Xehanort you know, we saw that in the Netherworld."

"Do you guys ever feel like you were sent on the wrong mission?" Demyx asked.

"No Dem, that's just you as usual" Axel said.

* * *

**Usagi: (Bounces around the room singing) Bouncy! Bouncy! Happy Flouncy! Loving! Loving this sensation!**

**Zakura: geezus, someone's had enough (takes coke away)**

**Usagi: NOOOOOOOO!..... okay. Hope you liked this chapter, with all of its dramatic chase-scenes! Monkey-chase-scenes. That's something you don't see everyday…**

**At least I didn't add the part from Ape Escape 3 where you can chase monkeys in racing cars.**

**Zakura: fun…**

**Usagi: Ape Escape is a strange game…. Please review! **


	23. War of the Monkeys

**Usagi: Welcome back friends, enemies and all of you who couldn't' care less! To yet another chapter of DoH! Seems I am failing on my original crazy plan to finish this fanfic within a year…. I did that with LiD but this one wasn't as easy to write… **

**Zakura: no wonder. You keep planning more things for the SEQUEL than for DoH!**

**Usagi: good point… I'm hoping to get this finished soon but there's still lots that needs to be done! And it had better not looked rushed… **

**You might wonder why it took so long to finish this...well there's several reasons, one is that the Jungle Book Arc was hard to write, the other was that my not-even-two-year-old laptop "Rabbit" was ready to fall apart...  
First the screen has been threatening to fall of a long time now, then the D-drive was acting up and corrupted plenty of my files, among those Darkness of the Heart I might add...but I didn't loose anything because I had a safety copy on my portable hard disc. **

**But then... sometime after Christmas the H-button fell of.... Decided by then enough was enough and bought a new laptop:3 Its called Rabbit V2, its a lot faster than the old Rabbit for one, but it didn't come with MS word... so I had to wait to finish this chapter till I got it back, since I didn't want to write it in notepad.... or even download Open Office which I stubbornly refuse to do XD I hate it really...  
**

**That being said…the Seeone-jungle arc has been made rather short… my main reason for having it in here was pretty much to introduce the Albino Powerwild anyway.**

**Zakura: makes me wonder why you didn't just make it based of Ape Escape.**

**Usagi: … and have them hunt monkeys that make TV-shows that are so boring they literally rot your brains?**

**Zakura: (Shrug) among other things…**

**Usagi: … no. Instead I give you this strange AU version. And plenty of NIS-demons slapped into chapters they don't belong. ENJOY!

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**Chapter 23**

**War of the Monkeys

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Somewhere far above the Seeonee Jungle flew a creature that would look strange in almost any world.

Morty the mothman demon heartless, now kept in the air by a pair of propels rather than his broken wing, and with one glowing red eye he scanned the jungle bellow him.

"And just why do you think they would be coming here of all places?" he asked out loud.

"Why can't you just do as you're told like the other heartless and stop asking so many questions about it?" Mao's voice said from a metal contraction, apparently a two-way radio, attached to the moth's ear. "The shadow we caught at that Radiant Garden place had been following these _heroes _on orders of Xehanort, and he said they were going here, you should know, you're the one who can speak to heartless."

Morty snorted. The boy wasn't even an overlord yet he sure was bossy like one, he couldn't have learned that from his father, he was pretty gentle as far as overlords went.

But he was right about one thing; Mao couldn't talk to the common heartless, Morty could, all of the demon heartless were important to him because of that ability but did he ever appreciate them for it?

Sure he was a demon, so it was to be expected, that still didn't make it less annoying.

"HOLY SHIT! What was that?" Morty suddenly yelled.

"What was what?"

_Oh just get your head out of your comics for once you dumbass! _Morty thought, but he knew far better than to say it out loud, but Mao seemed to have looked up anyway, as he heard the demon prince whistle in astonishment.

The hidden camera in Morty's eye was picking up a fire, which spread at an amazingly fast yet controlled rate just near the river, before the fire was just as quickly let out again by a ray of water seemingly coming just out of the river.

Trough the radio Morty heard sounds of someone tapping on a keyboard, suddenly he could see much better on his right eye, as if he suddenly moved in a lot closer.

That's when he saw what had caused the fire to go out.

"That fish" Mao said. "Isn't that the little sea serpent hatchling that followed the three-tails around? What was it called…Samihat?"

"Its Samehada Mao, Geez!" a female voice said.

Morty looked up in surprise until he remembered the camera only worked one way, so he couldn't see who was in there with Mao…yet he soon found out anyway.

"Beryl! How many times have I told you not to come into my room like that? Don't you have class or something?" Mao asked.

Of course, Raspberyl. Mao's childhood friend and one of the few students at the demon school who had perfect attendance…and since most demons never showed up in class at all that was pretty remarkable.

"Samehada is the subordinate of the three-tailed shark Isonade" Beryl continued. "I was wondering what happened to him after Isonade got turned into a heartless."

"Who cares? It's only a small fish!" Mao said. "If that was the best demon they thought they could bring with them from the Netherworld they're dumber than I thought. What did they do to the other bijuu? Released them back into the wild?"

"What started that fire?" Beryl asked.

Good question. Morty scanned the area around the forest, through the burnt leaves he only spotted a small red weasel, but surely that couldn't be the fire starter.

"Lightning?" Mao suggested.

"No, it's a clear sky" Morty said.

"Keyblades can start a fire right?" Beryl asked.

"But none of them have their weapons drawn" Morty said. "Unless that ferret-thing can produce fire out of thin air."

"You're right, that's just silly" Beryl said. "Still…Mao, why do you keep sending your modified heartless at these kids? Wouldn't it be easier just to send them to defeat Xehanort directly?"

_Oh no, here we go_ Morty thought, and wished for his dear life he could just turn of the radio.

"Oh I have my reasons" Mao said. "First of Xehanort _needs_ this kid, the heartless told me so. And another thing…"

The mothman heard Mao take a deep breath and so flew a bit higher up in the air.

"I hate, **hate HATE HEROES!" **Mao shouted, so loud Morty was almost worried the jungle creatures on the ground would hear him.

"Really? I never would have guessed" Beryl said. Morty thought he could almost see the girl gaze over at the Super Hero comics and video games that Mao apparently kept in his room for "research".

"Get out of my room delinquent! I've got work to do!" Mao said.

"Fine, I have to get to class in a few minutes anyway. Bye Mao!" Beryl said.

Morty heard the sound of a door closing and assumed Beryl had now left the room.

"Will you get back to work already?" Mao asked.

"Aye" Morty sighed.

--

"Did anyone hear someone shouting just now?" Riku asked.

"No. You must be imagining things" Sora said.

"Yeah you're probably right" Riku said shrugging.

They were on their way back to the wolves' meeting place (Riku and Sora had changed back into their wolf-forms, as they didn't feel like explaining to the wolves why they were suddenly monkeys) when suddenly Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear showed up.

"Oh there you are, we were just on our way to help you" Bagheera said. "Did you get the heartless?"

"Some, but we think their leader may have gotten away" Sora said.

"Don't worry. We'll catch him" said Baloo. "From what I've seen these critters aren't very bright are they?"

"Normally no. But this white one seems different" Sora said.

Suddenly a howl pierced the woods.

"Sounds like trouble" Bagheera said.

"Sounds like heartless-trouble" Sora said.

The party turned and ran towards the direction of the howl and arrived at Lala and Sura's den.

The two adult wolves were fighting of some of the heartless, with the pups hiding in the den.

"These things are popping up everywhere" Riku said.

It seemed the heartless had heard them; they turned around in panic, before they once again ran of into the forest.

"And...That was easy" Riku said.

"Hey! What was that all about?" Lala asked.

Before anyone had time to answer, the ground started shaking, a giant round heartless suddenly burst into the clearing, knocking down trees as it walked.

"A big body? Now that's one heartless I didn't expect to see here" Ienzo said.

"Hah! That thing is too fat to even move properly! It should be easy to beat it" Lala said, and started running towards the fat heartless.

The heartless stopped walking, and instead it bent over and got ready to roll at the wolves.

"Look out!" Sora shouted, he pushed Lala out of the way just before she could get hit by the giant rolling ball, the others quickly moved too.

"Okay, so it can't walk but it can roll, I got it" Lala said.

"Wanna see it fly?" Riku asked, he summoned the keyblade in his fangs again, and used it as a bat to hit the heartless, which flew a couple of feet into the air before landing on its back.

"Quick! Get it while it's down!" Sura said.

The party surrounded the heartless (who was having problems getting up) and decided to give it a little push, making it roll of the den site towards a cliff.

It didn't make it as far as the cliff, as a skeleton heartless (otherwise known as a Living Bone) ridden by a shaman showed up, and pushed the fat body in the other direction...only it pushed a bit too hard and it flew of and crashed into a hillside and vanished into nothing.

"Ah finally. Heartless with a more normal IQ" Riku said. "Or lack of thereof."

The shaman heartless riding the living bone however didn't look as happy, it jumped up and down on the living bone's back, and a few more of the monkey-heartless appeared, among those the white one.

"Great, you've come back for more?" Riku said. "I don't know what kind of creature you're supposed to be, but you're not getting away this time!"

The powerwild growled and shrieked something at his subordinates, before they decided to run for it again.

"Get them before they leave!" Sora said.

Someone must have heard them, since suddenly the rest of the wolf pack appeared too, and surrounded the monkeys.

"You're not getting away that easily" Luri said as she took her position in front of the other wolves.

There were no trees nearby that the monkeys could escape into, and the few that had been there had already been knocked over by the fat body.

"Don't let them escape! They can disappear into dark portals at any time!" Ienzo shouted.

"You heard him! Attack!" Luri shouted.

The wolves charged at the heartless, snatching the powerwilds and bouncywilds by their tails and throwing them into the mountain wall, most of them evaporated on impact, the rest where given the final blow by the rest of the pack.

Sora and Riku went for the living bone heartless attacking it from the left side while Sura and Akkru came at it from the other.

The shaman on its back didn't seem happy about this, and used his staff to try and hit the wolves.

"Leave them alone you freaky monkey!" Mowgli yelled, and threw a pointy rock he'd just picked up at the monkey heartless.

The stone hit the mask of the shaman, which cracked, and the heartless fell backwards of the back of the living bone and evaporated before it even hit the ground.

The living bone fell not long after its rider when Sora shoved the Kingdom Key into its chest.

"Great job everyone" Luri said.

"Did we get them all?" Akkru asked, and looked around for more heartless. "Did anyone see that white one?"

"Even if he did get away he won't dare to show his face here again" Mowgli said. "We sure showed those monkeys!"

"Yeah, just a shame we didn't find…" Sora started but was cut of as something started glowing on the mountain wall where the fat body had landed previously.

"What's that?" Sura asked.

"It's the keyhole!" Kairi said excitedly.

Sora summoned his keyblade again and pointed it at the keyhole; a beam shot out of it and made a clicking noise.

"Was that it?" Kichi asked.

"Yup, the world should be safe now" Sora said. "But the heartless might still return".

"No worries, we'll just kick them out once more" Mowgli said. "I'm sure those monkeys will think twice about coming back."

"If they're capable of thinking…which their leader seems to be" Riku said.

--

The white monkey in question had in fact managed to sneak of in the confusion, and was already a good distance away from the wolf pack.

It jumped through the trees, often not seeing where he was going because he was too busy looking behind him that he wasn't followed, until he suddenly crashed into something, and felt strange claws grab onto his tail.

"Sorry about that, but you're without a doubt not a regular heartless, and my boss has gotten quite interested in you" a voice said.

The albino Powerwild gazed up, and saw a large moth, it was using one of its smaller wings to hold on to the monkey's tail, as it was kept in the air by a pair of propels.

_Let go of me you freak!_ The Powerwild sneered.

Morty merely gazed at him.

"I'd love to little one. But I've got my orders and if I mess up now Mao will… frankly I don't want to think about what he will do" Morty said.

The monkey glared at him for a little while, before it suddenly started staring at something behind the moth.

"Yes, I know they look ridiculous, but thing is I can't fly without them, broken wing and all" Morty sighed. The propels was probably his favourite part about the modifications Mao had done to him, and the only one that was actually useful for something.

_You idiot! Look behind you! _The monkey said.

"You don't have to be rude…oh crap!" Morty yelled as he turned around, looking straight at a sorcerer nobody.

"So those are the nobodies I've been hearing so much about. Wonder how it would look like with lasers in those arms" Morty heard in his ear.

"Forgive me for saying this lord Mao but this really isn't the time" Morty said.

_FLY! _The Powerwild shouted.

Morty didn't have to be asked twice, with a good grip on the monkey's tail (who eventually crawled up and grabbed his wing as hanging there was really uncomfortable) he turned and flew as fast as the machinery on his back would let him, which thankfully was pretty fast.

Mothmen demon weren't known for being slow already but Morty was sure the propels even made him faster.

However the moth wasn't about to give gratitude towards Mao yet, especially as he heard a crackling noise.

"Mao? Are those propels you installed fire-proof?" Morty asked.

"Probably not. Why?" Mao asked.

Morty wasn't capable of replying, as suddenly one of the propels exploded and caught fire, and the moth and the monkey fell to the ground.

In a last attempt at saving whatever life had left, Morty dropped the monkey and rolled over on his back to put out he flames.

Just as he did that he saw the sorcerer nobody approaching.

The albino Powerwild was unconscious after the fall, the sorcerer could only bend down and pick it up.

"Don't let it get away with my experiment! If you loose this one you are as good as dead!" Mao complained.

Morty gazed at the nobody. It was a lot bigger than him; Morty had low defence already (heck at one time he even got a felony from the dark court for being a looser) and on top of that he couldn't fly…

_Screw this; I'm dead either way_ Morty said, before vanishing into a dark portal.

Knowing Mao he would probably put some strange contraption on him but let him live, he wouldn't last a second against a high levelled nobody.

Part of him wondered what the nobodies would do to the albino Powerwild, but the monkey would still be lucky, no matter what it was, it had to be better than what Mao had in store for him.

* * *

**Usagi: In case I haven't made it clear enough; Morty hate, hate, HATES Mao.**

**Zakura: oh gee. Wonder why.**

**Usagi: Don't expect the Disgaea references to end just yet… I just recently came across Disgaea 2 in a web store which I previously thought I'd never find! (Not un-used anyway) so of course I had to buy it! In turn, playing that game gives me ideas for the Netherworld-arcs of LiD. Including Morty, whom I even made in the game, but he most definitely isn't a modified heartless there… **

**Regarding the felony Morty mentions, they are from Disgaea 2, where demons can get felonies for all sorts of crazy things, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Being demons, a felony works almost like a war medal, and they even congratulate you for it.**

**In the game Morty got one…and it's for being a looser, after he died one too many time. (His defense is really low…which is even true in the fanfic as you can see…) **

**Zakura: doesn't beat Tink's felony for merely existing though…**

**Usagi: true. But Disgaea-references aside, what do the nobodies want with the Powerwild you ask? Well don't freaking expect me to answer! Just keep reading! **

**AND REVIEW.**

**Or Mao will do strange things to Morty… well he'll do that anyway, but if you review I might be able to convince him to use anaesthetic this time. **


	24. Secret of the Albino Powerwild

**Usagi****: Hi again everyone…sorry for the wait…**

**Zakura: what the heck have you been up to? **

**Usagi: getting you a boyfriend (picks up furry lionhead rabbit)**

**Zakura: …no seriously that doesn't take so long. You found that rabbit hanging around the garden, don't think I wasn't watching.**

**Usagi: Okay…so I've also been busy trying to save Spira from Sin, saving Heaphness from the world eaters and random evil gods, saving Veldime from turning into a Netherworld, saving the worlds from an evil albino monkey (twice) saving Azeroth from the Undead Scourge and building a zoo.**

**Zakura: …. You gotta stop getting all these new video games…**

**Usagi: (Playing Zoo Tycoon) Hm?**

**Zakura: gah! Never mind. Guess I just gotta start this chapter instead…. Now how do I do that…oh yeah.**

**READ THIS CHAPTER!

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**Chapter 24  
The Secret of the Albino Powerwild

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Darkness. Darkness everywhere. Paradise for any heartless right? Wrong.

Deym was starting to hate the Netherworld more and more, it had been fun for a while, messing with the demons, turning them into heartless as he saw fit… However he was about to realize demon heartless weren't like other heartless.

The stupid shark had left, or "left" wasn't the right word, Deym was lucky he got away from that crazy demon alive!

"Well this stinks" he muttered as he arrived at yet another abounded wasteland. "Leave to Xehanort to mess everything up."

Sure it may or may not have been Xehanort's fault the demons decided to turn on him for no reason, but it was him who let the Netherworld go to hell…or the realm of darkness, it was hell already.

You'd think the demons would be more submissive after getting their world blown away but no, they were worse than ever.

Quite a few of them went completely nuts and destroyed everything they saw, and every last one of them made it their goal to kill as many "common" heartless as possible, which for some reason they counted Deym as.

What did he do to them that were so horrible? Except for existing which was the most common answer he'd get when he bothered to ask.

"I had a good plan but it didn't go right" he said. "Those ungrateful demons. They weren't using their hearts anyway! What difference did it make?"

"There you are. I was almost worried some other demon had already finished you of" a young voice said.

Deym turned around quickly, he hadn't noticed anyone coming, but there stood Laharl, looking ready to rip a certain someone's head of.

"Well if it ain't the little heartless Overlord. I take it you're the one who's been telling everyone to start beating me up?" Deym asked.

"Yup" Laharl said. "I just decided, _your_ kind isn't allowed here anymore."

"_My_ kind? May I remind you I'm a heartless just like you?" Deym said.

"I may be a heartless but I'm also a demon, which you're not, you're just some common trash just like that Xenny-guy. So get the hell of my Netherworld!"

"Fools talkin' 'bout there's enough room for just one of us. Sometimes all I can do is laugh" Deym said. "May I remind you this isn't your Netherworld anymore? Its common practice, one a heartless steals the heart of a world it belongs to the heartl… hey!"

Deym got cut of a fireball hit the ground just inches away, almost hitting him.

"The heartless you say? Why don't you try saying that to my new vassals?" Laharl asked, as eight large monsters appeared behind him.

"How do yah want him? Just a little roasted or burnt to a crisp?" Kyuubi asked grinning evilly.

"How about buried under a mountain of sand? It's quite painful, or I've wasted my life" said Shukaku, who appeared just behind him.

"Let the dead deal with him" Nekomata said, the large feline demon came up on the other side of Laharl. "They'll show no mercy towards this rat I assure you."

"Let me have him" growled the three-tailed heartless shark. "He won't get away _this_ time!"

_So that's where he ran of to_ Deym thought to himself as the remaining bijuu crawled out of the shadows, Kaku the badger actually appeared out of a hole in the ground, glaring at him and showing of his powerful teeth.

"People…demons… monster-creatures… Why can't we be friends? Ruling the Netherworld obviously never mattered to me, as long as we can live in harmony" Deym said.

"We don't even get along with other demons, why should we get along with you?" Laharl asked. "Just… just kill him. In whatever manner you prefer."

"And here we go again" Deym sighed, and summoned his electric guitar just as the monsters all charged towards him. The massive water dragon erupted out of the ground, knocking the bijuu out just in time for Deym to jump a long way back.

"There are a lot of funny people in this funny world. Shame I can't stay to enjoy it" he said. "I need to get myself away from this place. Good luck fighting the war against Xehanort, you're gonna need it."

With that he vanished into a portal, just in time for Raijuu to jump onto the spot he'd just been standing and crashing down like a lighting bolt to the ground.

"DAMN IT!" Laharl shouted. "I AM SO GOING TO KILL THAT GUY!"

"Wasn't that what we were just trying to do?" Shukaku asked before he had to duck away from Laharl's sword.

"Forgive me for saying this but it seems to me we have bigger problems" Soukou said. "As much as I hate to admit it, Deym is right. Xehanort was able to pretty much push the entire Netherworld out of balance. How are we going to defeat him? Orochi isn't a pushover either, and heck who knows what kind of monsters he's gotten among his allies?"

"Idiot. Xehanort is a human, what good can he do?" Laharl said.

"If he was so weak why did you loose against him?" Shukaku asked. Laharl threw an energy ball at him and he had to revert to his smaller racoon-dog form to escape.

"I will get him next time. And that snake too…and even that dumbass rocker. I'LL KILL THEM ALL!" Laharl said. "I don't care what it takes I'm gonna get the Netherworld back to normal."

Soukou sighed, obviously not agreeing with the "plan".

Kyuubi merely chuckled. "You may be a heartless but you've got guts kid. That's what I like about you" the fox said. "But as much as I hate to say it the chicken-lizard has a point. If Xehanort got the Netherworld he's probably gotten a hold on a few other worlds too, and common heartless are _not _as intelligent as demon heartless are. They'll obey his every command without question, and there are a lot of them."

"You know… that rockstar wannabe called me something previously… It was quite catchy" Laharl said, seemingly ignoring what Kyuubi had just said.

"Monster creatures?" Kyuubi asked.

"No. When we first got here".

"Little Heartless Overlord?"

"Scratch the "Little" part. But Heartless Overlord has a nice ring to it" Laharl said. "If its true that heartless obey the strongest around, no wonder demon heartless are so stubborn."

"Quite logical…who are you and what have you done to the Overlord?" Kyuubi asked grinning.

"Ugh…shut up" Laharl said. "The point is, the demon heartless needs a leader. And that leader is gonna be me."

--

"That's your plan? A monkey?"

"Technically it's a chimpanzee" Xehanort told the wolf who was giving him odd looks with one eye. "But if you'd rather be the first…"

"As if. But fine, they do say chimps are closely related to us anyway" Xigbar said.

"Me perhaps but I doubt they're any closer to canines…" the heartless started

"You where never good at jokes" Xigbar said interrupting him. "So you've got a chimp heartless… but don't you need a nobody too? Didn't you just say normal animals don't get nobodies?"

"Normal animals no" Xehanort said, smirking at the unconscious albino Powerwild in the cage. "But who said this was a normal animal?"

As he said that Orochi showed up in a portal…two Orochis none the less.

"And I thought with one eye I wouldn't see double anymore…" Xigbar said.

"You're not seeing things there ARE two of them…actually there's eight, one human form for each head" Xehanort said.

One of the little men was the same as the first "Orochi" Xigbar had seen. The one wearing a hood covering his face.

The other one was showing his face, but seemed to wish he didn't. The face itself was normal, he looked like a normal bearded man except he wore a set of fake bunny-ears.

Once he'd gotten over the fact that there were two of them Xigbar noticed the snake-demons carried what appeared to be yet another unconscious ape.

It looked pretty average, except that his fur was all white, he wore red pants, a small scruffy brown cape and a white helmet with a giant blue light on it.

"We caught him master" the one with the bunny-ears said. "And might I add I hate this uniform."

"Get in line. I'm not letting you guys walk around looking just the same, it's confusing" Xehanort said. "And there was a sale on silly costumes down in Twilight Town."

"I wonder why" Xigbar said. "And here I was thinking you had no sense of humour."

"I'm out" the bunny-Orochi said before he turned around and left the room, only to be replaced by a bald guy with green shoes and a pink ribbon on his tail.

"O…k… so what's with the monkey?" Xigbar asked.

"Its not… ack who cares? Wake it up" Xehanort said.

The hooded Orochi pulled out a squirt gun from under his cloak, and immediately squirted the ape in the face with it.

The animal awoke immediately with a startled grunt, and pretty quickly started staring at each of the heartless and the one nobody in turn, the light on his head suddenly turned from blue to yellow and then red.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked.

"Oh so it's a talking monkey" Xigbar said. "With a light bulb on his head".

"Says the talking dog…. What's going on here?" the chimp asked.

"All in due time" Xehanort said, he started shaking the cage next to him, waking the Powerwild heartless who responded by flying at the bars and making angry monkey-sounds.

"You recognize this heartless don't you?" Xehanort said. "You were both one after all."

"So that's the albino powerwild's nobody?" Xigbar said. "Pretty advanced for an animal…who's not supposed to have nobodies in the first place?"

"That's because they're all idiots, right?" the ape nobody said. "I've dealt with apes before and they're not the brightest of the bunch".

"And what are you? A freaky human-chimp-hybrid or some kind of anthromorphic creature like the dog and duck who followed the keyblade master around?" Xigbar asked.

"What? Hell no!" the chimp said. "My name is Specter, I'm a chimp, nothing more. But thanks to this" he pointed to the helmet on his head which had switched to blue again. "I am a lot smarter than any other apes and you pathetic humans….and wolf too."

"I'm actually a human, this form is just temporary…I hope" Xigbar said.

"I don't care. They both suck" Specter said.

"…I'd hate you if I had a heart. But we have a rule here in Organization XIII, nobodies tend to make anagrams of their names so we can tell them apart from their others…"  
"Fine, then call me Recepts".

"…and add an X" Xigbar finished after getting cut of. "Did you just make that up in one second?"

"Recepts is fine. I'm sure Xemnas won't mind, since he's my other anyway" Xehanort said. "So you want to help us with our little project?"

"No" Recepts just said.

"You haven't even heard what it was" Orochi (the one with the ribbon) said.

"I don't care. I don't work with humans, wolves and…whatever you two are supposed to be" Recepts said, with his back turned on the heartless and Xigbar. The Powerwild in the cage did the same.

"Is that so?" Xehanort said. "And fellow heartless and nobodies?"  
"I don't care."

"What a shame" Xehanort said with a fake sigh. "Then I guess you're not interested in helping me fuse the two of you back together, and at the same time give you powers beyond anyone's imagination. I might even get you your friends back."

Both chimps suddenly turned their heads in unison.

"What kind of powers?" Recepts asked.

"Anything you can ask for my simian friend" Xehanort said with a smirk. "And much more."

* * *

**Usagi: MONKEY!**

**Zakura: Where were Sora, Riku and Kairi in this chapter?**

**Usagi: at a Smash Mouth Concert.**

**Zakura: no really…**

**Usagi: back home I guess. Or at Radiant Garden fighting Kairi's mom. Potentially fighting some new unknown enemy in a very dramatic battle scene you'll never get to see.**

**Zakura: fine whatever…**

**Usagi: so we've got Specter's nobody introduced…What does the Organization want with him? Hah. Like I'm gonna tell that… **

**Zakura: The word Lab Monkey comes to mind…**

**Recepts: Hey!**

**Usagi: Well at least Vexen isn't there anymore. Or Mao. If he had he'd been in big trouble. **

**I based Recepts in this chapter of the first Ape Escape game, (or Ape Escape P, since that's the version I've got) and he wears a "normal" pipo helmet instead of the one he usually has. For all of you non-Ape Escape-players that means a plain white helmet with a huge light bulb on top. The light is blue when the monkey is calm, yellow when they know you're around and red if they're on full alert.**

**Now Review! Or the pipo monkeys will throw bananas at you. **


	25. Mothman Worries

**Usagi: hi guys… Sorry I'm late. I've been working on this chapter even since BEFORE I uploaded the last one and frankly… Sigh… I don't quite like how it turned out. But I just had to make it somehow. **

**Zakura: what? So you can bug Morty some more?**

**Usagi: yes. That's exactly why.

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**Chapter 25**

**Mothman Worries

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"What is that?"

"It looks icky."

"It's just a bug…"

"Yeah giant bug…"

"Do you think it's still alive?"

"I think it's breathing…"

"But I don't feel any heartbeat…"  
"What if it's a heartless?"

"Ugh."

Whatever Morty expected to see when he woke up he wasn't sure, but it sure as hell wasn't expecting to see three fairy girls staring at his face.

"Hey! He is alive! Hurray!" a blonde one yelled.

"I though you said it was icky" a black-haired one said, raising an eyebrow.

"Are you okay? You look pretty beat up" a brown-haired one said.

Morty quickly moved his wing up to his head, trying to find the camera Mao had fitted over his eye, all he felt was a broken piece of metal sticking out and some wire.

One of the propels had fallen of too, the other was burnt and broken, his radio only picked up static.

"Are you a cyborg?" The blonde fairy said.

"What? No!.... I hope not" Morty said, suddenly he wondered if Mao had put anything in his body that he didn't know about, like a self-destruct mechanism…although if he had the mothman would probably be dead by now… But since he hadn't… Could Mao still hear him? Or had he actually escaped?

After meeting the nobody, he had simply opened a portal at random, not caring where it went, it turned out it opened in mid-air and with a broken wing and broken propels, he had fallen directly to the ground, hitting several buildings on the way.

The fall must have broken the camera too, and the communication equipment.

He grinned. If that was true he was free!

"He's a heartless".

Well unless these fairies killed him first…

"What? Nonono. I'm not a heartless" Morty said.

"Yellow eyes, no heartbeat. Sounds like a heartless to me" the black-haired fairy said.

"Hey…you girls wouldn't happen to know what world this is?" Morty tried asking.

"I'm getting Leon!" the blonde fairy said and flew of; the other two suddenly pulled a pair of guns at the mothman.

"There now…don't be hasty" Morty said and crawled backwards away from the fairy girls.

"Who sent you? Was it Maleficent? Or The Organization?" the brown-haired fairy asked.

"What Organization?" Morty asked. "No one sent me! I'm on your side…I think…I just escaped from my former boss and trust me I do not want to go back."

"We don't side with heartless" the black-haired fairy said.

"Although it is rather unusual that you talk" said the other.

"I…I'm a magical nice talking heartless?" Morty tried.

"Very funny. We know of one other talking heartless and he's neither magical nor nice" the black-haired fairy said.

Damnit! There went that plan… Time for plan C.

The mothman shrieked loudly, causing the two girls to have to hold their ears while he ran for it, as fast as he could, crawling on his wings.

He knew he couldn't hide for long, he had no idea where he was but giant moths were obviously not a common thing around here. But where else could he go? He had no idea where he even was.

"Stop there!"

And now he was caught again.

Morty turned and saw a man standing behind him, along with the blonde fairy.

"Is this the creature Rikku?" Leon asked.

"That's the one. What have you done to Yuna and Paine you meanie?" Rikku asked.

"Nothing I swear…or I may have confused them a bit, they'll get better" Morty said quickly. "Don't shoot…or chop me up or however that thing works."

"Who or what are you?" Leon asked, still not lowering the gunblade that currently stood only a few inches away from the moth's face.

"Have no fear, the great ninja Yuffie is here!" someone else said. Yuffie stood upon a pile of crates and gazed at the moth. "Is this the Monster of the week? What a disappointment, looks like someone already defeated him."  
"Uhm… Actually I kind of broke most of these myself… except my wing" Morty said. "My name is Morty. And yes I am a heartless… But I don't work for…whoever you think I work for."

"Then who do you work for? Xehanort? Maleficent? Sin?" Rikku asked.

"What's Sin?" Yuffie asked.

"Never mind…" Rikku said.

This could be a good time to escape, Morty thought. However since he didn't know where he was he wasn't sure if it was a smart idea to open a portal. The last time he'd tried he'd fallen 20 feet straight down, and what if he ended up inside a wall?

He had never heard of a heartless opening a portal into a wall but once had to be the first, and with his luck he wouldn't be so surprised.

"Whatever he is he doesn't look all that dangerous" Yuffie said.

"Oh thank heavens" Morty said, before he even realized he had said that out loud and pondered how strange it was for a demon to be thanking heavens…

"And he's cute, can't we keep him?" the ninja asked with a grin.

"You said that when you saw Sora's heartless too and I still hope you're joking" Leon said.

"Sora wasn't evil even as a heartless and this one don't look so bad either" Yuffie asked. "Maybe Vexen can help this one get back to normal too!"

"Oh…wait… Normal how?" Morty asked. He'd been looking from one human to the other as they spoke, not knowing much what they talked about. But they mentioned "Sora"…wasn't that the guy he'd been asked to stalk previously? He'd better not mention that… if they were a friend of this Sora they probably wouldn't like to hear that.

"I'm still not sure if we can trust that guy… neither Vexen nor… whatever that is" Leon said.

"Let's ask the others then. Come on little guy" Yuffie said and before anyone had time to protest she picked up Morty and ran towards Merlin's house.

--

Meanwhile at Merlin's house the door suddenly flew open.

"We're back! Who's missed me?" Axel said as the main party entered.

Cid looked up from the workbench he was sitting by and raised an eyebrow.

"Aerith, get the water hose" he said.

"Oh you're a riot. Are you still working on that robot?" Axel asked.

"It's not as easy as it looks. It's got some really advanced parts in here I've never seen before. Maybe it's some kind of super-intelligent robot or something" Cid said.

"That could be pretty cool. You've got to tell us when it's finished" Sora said. "Where's Leon and Yuffie?"

"Rikku showed up asking for help with a giant insect-infestation or something" Cid said. "As if the native heartless weren't bad enough now we're getting freaks from other worlds too."

"Insects? Do we know any heartless like that?" Sora asked.

"Other than the giant moths that attacked us back in the Spargus Wastelands… I'm not quite sure" Ienzo said.

"Ah never mind about that. I'm sure Leon and the girls can handle it" Cid said. "Oh and your mother called."

"Why am I not surprised" Kairi sighed.

"How many times?" Ienzo asked.

"Five times a day since you left, she also sent six emails" Cid said. "Don't any of you guys carry a cell phone?"

"Yeah, but it's hard to get one that works on every single world in the universe" Sora said staring at a phone that was clearly out of its reception area, not that he would have given Nanami his number if it had been possible he thought to himself. "I don't think that jungle would have had very good reception even if I had one from that world and they definitely didn't have receivers for a phone registered at Destiny Islands."

"Ah… good point. But you still have the transmitters in the Gummi ship that I installed on your first adventure right?" Cid asked. "I could try to make that send the signals to your phone while you're out of the gummi ship."

"Oh you don't have to do that" Ienzo said.

"You're just saying that so you don't have to talk to her right?" Cid asked. "It doesn't hurt to let her know you're not dead or turned into a heartless once in a while you know."

"Kairi can't be turned into a heartless, since she's a princess of heart there's not a hint of darkness in her" Ienzo said.

"Say that to your mom" Cid said but before they could argue some more the door opened again and Leon and Yuffie entered with the fairy girls. Yuffie was carrying a giant moth.

"Oh, I didn't know you guys were here" Leon said. "Oh and Kairi, your mother called."

"We know…what's that?" Kairi asked.

"OH SHIT ITS THEM!" Morty cried and tried to break free of Yuffie's grip, but she wouldn't let him go.

"Uhm… do we know that thing?" Riku asked.

"So is this the mysterious bug heartless? He doesn't look dangerous… he looks like a broken robot" Axel said. "Maybe he's a friend of Cid's cat."

"Er… nono. I'm not a… I mean I've never seen any of you guys before" Morty said quickly.

"Then why did you shout "its them" just now? Hey, aren't you one of those moths that attacked us back in the Haven City Wastelands?" Sora asked.

"No not at all! I don't even know these guys" Morty said.

"You definitely look like them, although you seem to have gotten a few new accessories. Similar to that behemoth we saw now that I think about it" Ienzo said. "How about you stopped lying and tell us the truth. Who are you, why did you attack and what are you doing here?"

"You might as well spill the beans mothman, you're not going anywhere soon" Yuffie said.

Morty knew he was surrounded, he couldn't use the dark corridors, and even if he did they'd probably kill him if he tried to escape.

Die now or die later… he didn't have anything to loose.

"Fine I was at the wastelands…but it wasn't my idea to go there I swear" Morty said. "My name is Morty, I'm a mothman demon heartless."

"From the Netherworld? Did Laharl send you?" Sora asked.

"Ugh no… there's more than one demon overlord in the Netherworld you know, many of them even worse than Laharl. My old boss isn't even an Overlord, but I think I'd rather work for Laharl" Morty said. "True I never met him… but it's because of my boss that I have all these electronic stuff on me. All I did was break my wing and he gave me a set of propels, a camera and who knows what else!"

"That doesn't sound so bad; at least you could fly again right?" Kairi said.

"He doesn't use anaesthetics, and he always does TOO MUCH! I'd rather just live with the broken wing, even if it'll probably never heal completely on its own" Morty sighed, he held up his left wing which had a large chunk ripped out from it.

"That's a pretty nasty wound you've got there. Mind if I take a look?" Aerith asked.  
She walked over to the moth and held up his broken wing, as she did, a green glow engulfed the wound, and it suddenly seemed to be shrinking, at least a little bit.

Morty stared at it in amazement.

"That's incredible! How did you do that?" he said.

"It was just a simple cure-spell. It would take a lot of energy to restore it to its former shape but I can help speed it along" Aerith explained.

"You can do that after he tells us who he's working for" Riku said.

"Oh yeah… his name is… augh!" suddenly the mothman screamed and held his head.

"What happened? Does it hurt anywhere?" Aerith asked.

"Yes! Everywhere! Ouch…I think it passed" Morty said.

"If you don't talk soon it's gonna hurt more" Riku said.

"Alright already. It's… OWOWOW!" Once again the sentence was cut of by screams of agony.

"What is going on?" Sora asked.

"That metal headband he's wearing… I thought I saw a spark coming from it when he tried to say his boss' name, maybe its some kind of machinery in there that keeps him from revealing too much" Aerith said, as she examined the moth's headwear.

"We could just take it of" Leon said.

"No! I mean I hate this thing as much as you do but this isn't a normal headband. I've tried to pull it of before but it's stuck in my skull" Morty said.

"Ouch. Whoever that boss of yours is he must be a real bastard" Axel said.

"I know I'm not supposed to have emotions but even I think that's disgusting" Demyx added.

"Cid, can you do something about it?" Leon asked.

"I'm a gummi ship technician, not a surgeon" Cid said. "Aerith is the medical expert on the team."

"Healing and surgery isn't quite the same either" Aerith added.

"How about just removing it and then have Aerith heal the wound?" the computer said.

"Tron, he's not a machine. That could kill him" Ienzo said. "Though I'm slightly surprised he survived the first operation."

"Barely" Morty sighed. "I hear several of the modified heartless die during the operations."

"There's more? How many of you are there?" Sora said.

"I'd rather not say in case my head starts hurting again" Morty said.

"You know. I think Vexen might be able to remove the headband" Ienzo said.

"Why are you helping the guy who attacked you previously?" Riku asked.

"I'm not guaranteeing Vexen's attempts at taking it of will be painless either" Ienzo said. "Besides he might still want something to experiment on with his heartless-experiments."

"I don't like the sound of that…" Morty said.

"Too late. I already sent him a message, he'll be here in ten minutes" Cid said. "I don't want a giant bug flying around in here" he added.

"Whoever controls fate in this universe must either really hate me or be extremely sadistic" Morty sighed.

* * *

**Usagi: it's the latter one.**

**Sora: thank you. We've noticed.**

**Usagi: Well anyway. Please review. I'll try my best to make the next chapter come quicker and not to mention: Be good. **

**Oh here's an idea. Recently the fic has been switching back and forth between so many different characters, and I'm not always sure which characters I should write about all the time, so is there a character/group you'd like to see more of in the future? Just let me know and I may try to write some more about them:3 **

**Please review. The more reviews I get the more eager I will be to update quickly. **


	26. Fish Tale

**Usagi: Hi guys, long time no see.**

**Zakura: Holy bunny, how long do you plan to wait next time?**

**Usagi: Hopefully not too long… I only have a couple of more plots I need to wrap up before I can finish this fic.**

**Sora: HURRAY!**

**Usagi: and start with the sequel.**

**Sora: F***! **

**Zakura: I didn't know you could swear…**

**Sora: yeah like Disney would let me say that… Besides not even THEY let me through half as much crap as fanfiction-writers do.**

**Usagi: They did turn you into a heartless.**

**Sora: only for a couple of minutes. And they didn't to out of the way to humiliate me while doing so. **

**Usagi: aw but you were so cute…**

**Sora: (Glare)**

**Usagi: fine… I bet you'll be glad to know there's no Sora-torture in this chapter. **

**Sora: it's a start…**

**Usagi: Instead it's the time to give Demyx a hard time. But he's a nobody so he won't care.**

**Demyx: just because I'm a nobody doesn't mean I don't have feelings!**

**Usagi: … that's exactly what it means.**

**Demyx: oh right… **

**Usagi: Decided to put an end to the kids summer break too, as in real time it's lasted for one and a half year… **

**Sora: How long is that in this fanfic? A week?**

**Usagi: I've completely lost count… TIME-SKIP TIME!**

**Sora: of course…**

**Usagi: DEYM-TIME! **

**Demyx: OH GOD NO!

* * *

**

**Chapter 26**

**Fish Tale

* * *

**

All good things must come to an end, which included Summer Vacation.

Despite how much they wanted to save the world, for some reason Sora and Kairi's parents (namely Kairi's mom) seemed to think it was more important to finish their last year at school.

At least Kairi managed to convince her mom to let her finish at her old school, instead of starting over at Radiant Garden only for the final year, so she was allowed to stay with her adopted parents on Destiny Islands on school-days, Nanami herself lived in their guest room, while Ienzo volunteered to stay at Radiant Garden to water her plants (her one cactus).

Thankfully the heartless activity seemed to be slowing down.

Several people on various worlds had reported that they had seen some heartless, seemingly in a hurry to go somewhere, but they weren't causing as much problems as they usually would.

This meant that even the ones who didn't have to go to school (Axel, Demyx, Samehada, Ienzo and Riku who quit the year before) didn't have much to do during the days.

But despite the apparent peace, a certain beaver still seemed anxious.

"Hey relax! We've finally got a vacation from saving the world!" Axel said, as he was lazing on the beach (lying just above where the water would come in with the high tide, despite it being hours away). "Ironic that it had to come just as the summer vacation ended though…oh well its not like anyone here would hire an Ottsel for any work anyway. Got it memorized?"

"I can't…I have a nasty feeling something terrible is about to happen" Demyx said.

"You don't feel" the Ottsel reminded him.

"Not that kind of feeling" Demyx sighed.

"What is it then?" Samehada asked, he crawled up on the sand to the other two.

"What's bothering you guys?"

Sora, Riku and Sora had showed up at the beach. Kairi, who had just been speaking, sat down and looked at Demyx.

"You're just gonna think it sounds stupid… but I keep having a hunch that my heartless is about to do something… something bad" Demyx said.

"Doesn't sound so stupid to me" Sora said.

"Yeah, since when did heartless do anything good?" Riku said.

"I was really talking about the "having a hunch what your heartless is doing"-bit" Sora said. "Have you had any funny dreams lately?"

"Actually I started getting the hunch earlier today so no" Demyx said. "Whatever he's planning it has to be a spontaneous idea."

"There went the hope of him getting murdered by Laharl or someone for blowing up the Netherworld" Axel said.

"But he can't die like that right? Wasn't that what Vexen said, that he can't die unless his nobody does?" Kairi asked.

"Oh yeah…that complicates things a little" Axel said and gazed at Demyx.

"You don't have any idea of just _what _Deym is planning then? Or where he is?" Sora asked.

"No… did you ever… as a nobody…feel what your heartless was planning?" Demyx asked.

"Yeah…sure …planning" Sora said.

"Alright bad example" Demyx sighed. "What am I going to do?"

"Take a nap?" Sora suggested.

"I'm being serious…" the beaver muttered.

"So am I. Trust me, it could help" Sora replied. "If you do, maybe you could get a better idea of what he's doing, or at least where he is."

"Unless he just gets a totally unrelated nightmare. It wouldn't be the first time" Riku said.

"To nobodies even get nightmares?" Kairi asked.

"Yeah but without emotions they're not as scary as they should be" Axel said grinning. "At least that's one advantage to it…unless of course you're the melodious nocturne."

"Riku does have a point… how would I know if it's not just any other bad dream?" Demyx asked.

"Oh believe me, you'll know" Sora said.

--

"Now this is surely something for the history books" Riku said. "And so the fate of the world depends on a nobody taking a nap, what will our kids think if they read that in their school books?"

They were all back in Sora's house, his parents were out at the moment, while Demyx was sleeping on the couch. All things considering he didn't seem to have any problems falling asleep.

"I suggest we leave that part out if anyone asks" Sora said. "For all we know maybe it was a false alarm after all, and Deym is still trying to boss around the demon heartless."

"Speaking of demons… do you think it could have something to do with Morty? Or whoever he was working for?" Kairi asked.

The mothman still hadn't revealed any more information on his mysterious employee, and despite several attempts, Vexen hadn't been able to remove the headband that prevented him from doing so, not without slicing open his brain anyway.

Even the Organization's resident "mad scientist" was disgusted by some of the modifications Morty had to go through, and considered it a miracle he had even survived (being a demon had probably helped.)

"You might have a point…you don't think…?" Sora wondered out loud.

"No way! Deym can't be THAT smart" Axel said. "If he was, he wouldn't have turned Laharl into a heartless. It doesn't look like he had as much control over demon heartless as he thought he had. Those things are though… with the exception of that giant snake they wouldn't even listen to Xehanort!"

"Yeah, demon heartless do seem a lot different from the normal ones" Kairi said. "But I wonder if that's a good thing… On one hand they don't seem too fond of Xehanort, but on the other hand well…"

"They're demons?" Samehada said. "We're not all bad you know."

Kairi was about to apologize when Demyx's eyes suddenly shot open.

"It can't be…" he started, before he ran out of the door before anyone had time to ask "What can't be?"

--

A doorbell was ringing.

"Ain't that typical, always when you're in the shower" a woman muttered, she had just gotten out and was about to dry her hair, and hastily took on her clothes.

She gave up on getting her hair completely dry, and instead tied a towel around.

"I'm coming already. Gosh!" she said as the doorbell rang again, and again soon after.

Whoever it was they should be able to wait for just a minute, all of her friends and family knew she liked to take a shower after coming home from work.

She walked through the hallway towards the door, passing an aquarium where the fishes swam up to the glass to see who was making all the noise.

Whoever it was, they were tired of waiting.

The door flew open, seemingly pushed by an enormous blast of water.

The girl covered her eyes automatically as the blast came, and as the door fell just a few feet away from her she looked up at who was in the door.

It couldn't be… it was him! But it couldn't be right! He disappeared years ago, still there he was, and looking no older than when they last saw one another.

_The day they broke up._

"Honey, I'm home" he said with a sinister grin.

--

"How fast can that beaver run?" Axel asked. "Hey Demyx! Mind telling us where we're going?"

The party had followed Demyx out of the house and were now running down the street.

It had to look pretty stupid to bystanders, three teenagers, one with a large two-toned blue fish trying to hang on to his back, the other a bright red weasel-like creature on his shoulder, chasing a blonde beaver.

"No time" Demyx said exhausted. "He's already…pant…there. I know it!"

"Where?" Axel asked Sora (who's shoulder he was currently clinging too) like he had any answers.

But Demyx didn't say more, he just kept on running down the street towards the beach.

Sora wondered if that was where he was going, the children's island perhaps? But what would Deym be doing there?

But then Demyx took a new turn and ran up behind a line of houses just above the shoreline.

He finally stopped in front of a door; someone had obviously just tried to break into, as the door was knocked over, he ran inside.

"Wa… Wakana are you there?" he cried. "Please, if you can hear me, just say something!"

No one answered. The only sound to be heard inside the house was the sound of the aquarium's filter.

"Who's Wakana? Your girlfriend?" Axel said.

"Ex-girlfriend" Demyx said shortly before he disappeared of into the living room to search more.

Axel looked a bit surprised at being right. As Sora looked at him he even thought he saw some regret in the furry face.

"Do you think she was turned into a heartless?" Kairi asked as the trio slowly walked past the aquarium, and Samehada crawled up on Riku's shoulder watching the fish with great interest.

"Well it depends on how much Deym cares about her I guess" Sora said. "But since he also seems rather disturbed…well."

"Why don't we ask them?" Samehada asked and pointed at the tank.

"Sorry to break it to you Sammy, but we can't talk to fish" Riku said.

"Duh, I knew that" Samehada said. "But in case you haven't noticed I AM a fish!"

"So you can talk to any fish?" Kairi asked, Demyx came back from the living room too, his search obviously fruitless.

"Of course, but put me in the tank, it's too hard to speak to them through the glass" Samehada said eagerly.

Kairi walked up to the tank and tried to open the small lid.

"Be careful, Wakana always loved her fishes" Demyx said.

"And some girls like fuzzy animals… I can see why you two hooked up" Axel said.

"So your girlfriend was living on this very island the whole time and you never went to visit her?" Sora asked.

"It's not that easy! I'm a nobody, it can never be the same… besides she's probably better of without me, and otherwise she wouldn't have broken up with me" Demyx said.

"Didn't you say you left her because you turned into a nobody?" Kairi said, having finally opened the aquarium lid successfully.

Demyx sighed. "She broke up with me on the same day, just a couple of hours before… She left me with nothing but a scribbled note".

"Well maybe if you save her from…yourself…you can get back into her good books" Riku suggested. "I hope you can fit in here Sam, I don't think this gap was made to put in a fish your size."

He pushed the fish into the aquarium, and he only just got in. Thankfully he was quite slippery, or he probably would have gotten stuck in the small gap on the top of the aquarium.

The fish tank itself was rather big thankfully, Samehada was able to fit in it just fine, however he didn't have much freedom to move around, being so big, and even if he tried to move he would probably push over the largest ornament, a plastic volcano covered in glowing red lights and with bubbles coming out on top.

_Oh come on, I've seen underwater volcanoes in the Netherworld and they're not covered in glowing plastic _he thought to himself.

Of course his appearance in the tank didn't go un-noticed by the other inhabitants, he could see at least three or four other fish and some sort of shrimp hiding behind the volcano, but one fish swam up to him, watching him suspiciously.

The fish was flat, almost moon-shaped if you ignored the tail sticking out. He had black and white stripes with some yellow patches on the white. It was a Moorish Idol, not that Samehada knew much about fish from outside the Netherworld.

Samehada noticed that his right fin was broken, and he had a scar on his right eye.

"And just what are you supposed to be?" the Idol asked. "Certainly these humans can't assume a fish your size can fit in this tank?"

"Oh don't worry, I'm not planning on moving in" Samehada said. "I just need to talk to you."

"He's a strange one Gil" said a muffled voice.

A pink starfish was hanging on the glass, she disconnected two of her feet to reveal a face that had previously been squashed against the glass, so she could see the other fish, and talk more freely. "I saw him hanging on to that boy's shoulder, and he even talked and breathed out of water" she said.

"Oh yeah, that. I'm not really a "normal" fish by your standards" Samehada said. "I can stay out of the water for quite some time, as long as it doesn't get too dry… My name is Samehada."  
"I'm Gil" the idol said. "The starfish is Peach and those are Gurgle, Bloat, Deb, Bubbles and Jaques."

"You forgot my sister, Flo" said one of the fish who came out from behind the volcano, a blue and white-striped damsel fish, who pointed towards the glass to introduce Samehada to her sister, who turned out to be her reflection in the tank wall.

"Don't get too close Gil, you don't know what kind of germs he may carry from outside the tank" said Gurgle, a long royal gamma, half his body was purple but his tail was yellow.

Samehada sent the fish a strange look; suddenly he wasn't so sure it was a good idea to ask them, he was just wondering if they were all equally crazy which seemed to be confirmed as the yellow tang Bubbles swam over to a treasure chest announcing "My bubbles!", Bloat the Porcupine fish inflated himself for no reason and got swept away with the weak current from the aquarium pump, and the shrimp barely gave Samehada one more look, muttered something in French, and hid inside an ornament resembling a diver's helmet.

Gazing from these and back to Gil, Sam was half-expecting him to do something strange too, but Gil just sighed.

"Don't be too hard on them. They've been living different aquariums their entire lives, fish aren't meant to be stuck behind glass walls" he said.

"You have a point. I'd probably go nuts too if I had to be locked up… and you're not?" Samehada asked.

"I came from the ocean. Our current "owner's" father picked me up on one of his diving trips. He was a notorious fish collector" Gil said with a scowl. "I tried to get out. I managed to get out of the tank back in his office where we lived before, but I landed on a table full of dentist equipment… I was aiming for the sink."

"So that's why your fin is broken… hey tell you what. I can talk to humans, so maybe if you help me find your owner I can ask her to give you a bigger habitat? Maybe even release you!" Samehada said. "And if she doesn't… Hey, I'm a demon! I can probably find a way."

"That doesn't sound so bad does it Gil?" Peach said.

Gil didn't seem that convinced.

"Might I add; your owner might be in grave danger. Either you help us, and I'll ask her to cut you some slack, or you slowly starve to death here. It's your choice" Samehada said.

"He really _is _a demon" Gurgle said.

Gil just sighed again, before turning to the starfish.

"Peach, how much did you see?" he asked.

"Well, just a short while ago I heard someone knock the door" Peach said. "Whoever it was must have been very impatient, as he suddenly knocked the door in. It must have flown at least ten feet."

"Yeah we kind of noticed it is lying ten feet into the hallway here" Samehada said. "Did you see who knocked? And what happened to Wakana?"

"It was some strange blonde guy" Peach said. "Wakana did seem very surprised to see him. Apparently she knew him and thought he was dead… He wanted her to come with her somewhere but she refused, so he knocked her out and some strange creatures carried her of… then they just sort of…vanished."

"As in a black puff of smoke?" Samehada asked.

"Uh-huh."

"Dark corridors…I should have known… but there's no way of knowing where he had taken her" Samehada muttered to himself.

"Uhm. He did say something about going to "the normal place" wherever that is…" Peach said.

"Okay… well that's something at least… thanks for the help" Samehada said.

He swam back up to the top of the tank, and crawled up from the open lid.

"Hey Demyx, did you and Wakana ever have a standard meeting place for your dates?" he asked.

"Yeah…there's an old abounded port by the edge of town" Demyx said. "We always went there."

"Then that's where we need to go" Samehada said. "Also if there's a box of fish food anywhere, please put some in the tank."

* * *

**Zakura: Something's missing from this chapter…**

**Sora: good story-telling?**

**Axel: fire?**

**Demyx: music?**

**Riku: Action?**

**Kairi: kittens?**

**Ienzo: Kittens?? **

**Zakura: no… clown fish.**

**Usagi: it fell in the sink and got reunited with his dad and forgetful friend Dory.**

**Gil: no fair…**

**Usagi: Relax. At least Wakana isn't going to give you away to some crazy cousin of hers without telling the girl that shaking the bag of the fish is a bad thing…**

**Zakura: I sense a rant about Finding Nemo coming up…**

**Usagi: (takes a deep breath)**

**Sora: We get it! Stupid kids shouldn't have animals! I think we all learned that with Annie. **

**Usagi: Point taken…  
But yes, as you should have guessed by now, the fishes in this chapter are all characters from Finding Nemo. As a bit random trivia I decided to make Wakana related to the dentist who's the previous owner of these fishes. He's now retired and gave the fish to her; because she loves fish like most girls loves horses… **

**Riku: aha. So that's why Demyx brought Samehada with him from the Netherworld.**

**Demyx: I didn't "take him with me!" He just followed me home!**

**Riku: riiiight.**

**Samehada: That's alright. I don't mind being used to attract girls, as long as they're cute.**

**Demyx: don't even think about it… Deym is going to murder you. **

**Samehada: Jikes… **

**Usagi: I should give some credit for this chapter to Rilaveke, who actually wrote a suggestion for Wakana's introduction scene in this chapter. A lot of it is based on that:3**

**Zakura: and Deym himself… How did Demyx get such a badass heartless anyway?**

**Usagi: Patience young dwarf rabbit… all will be revealed in time…**

**PLEASE REVIEW! **


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